A Tattered Book in an Old Asylum
by Fringie Jester
Summary: *Part 2 to 'Don't Let Me Go'* Walter had always been the one who instantly drew a line when it came to believing in ghosts, but now that one is wreaking havoc on the entire Fringe team, will he change his mind?
1. A Weak Spot

**Chapter 1- A Weak Spot**

Walter had been leaning back in one of the only soft chairs in his lab, listening to one of Beethoven's many symphonies as he best to relax and get his mind off of the seemingly vast emptiness of the lab. Peter and Olivia were busier now than they had ever been before, now that they had Etta, who had recently started going to daycare only a little earlier that year. The little girl had been excited to get started on this grand new and exciting adventure that was ahead of her and she took all of it head on, much like her mother would. Walter could see so much of both Olivia and Peter in her, even at such a youthful age. The thought brought a smile to his face; he couldn't say that the older days were better, or even simpler than they were now, it was all just the beginning of something far greater than he could have possibly ever imagined when he first stepped foot outside of St. Claire's. He had a family now.

A pair of hands gently grasped at his headphones and pried them away from his ears, causing Walter to jump and look around for the source of the disturbance and there stood Astrid with a grin on her face. "Oh, it's only you, Astro!" he said as he bolted upright in his chair and Astrid walked around in front of him so that he wouldn't have to strain his neck to see her.

"Were you expecting someone else?" she teased, as she turned to put the headphones away on the shelf behind her and then flipped the switch to turn the music off.

"Not exactly. I-I only thought that today was your day off from work."

"It is. But I don't think that prevents me from dropping by to see a friend." she said as she gracefully turned back around to face him and then gently leaned herself over his chair to bring herself to his level. "I made a few homemade pumpkin pies earlier since it's getting closer to Halloween and I thought that you may like to have one." She briefly placed a hand over Walter's and gave it a comforting squeeze before bringing herself to stand up right and pointed in the general direction of the fridge. "I left it over there in the fridge."

"That is very kind of you, Abner." He replied as he pushed himself up off of the chair to walk over to the fridge with the glass door and let his eyes darted all over the shelves until they finally landed on the tinfoil covered delectable looking pumpkin pie. The mere thought of cutting into the orange-ish filling and flaky brown crust was enough to make his mouth water; it was after all, hard for him to resist food, especially if it was something that was made by his dear friend. She had always made the best pies. "Would you like a slice?"

"No, that's okay! I had a piece with my father before I came over. This one is all yours." She said with a smile, but she knew Walter well enough by now to know that he had something else on his mind, just from the way that she had found him listening to music. "Is everything okay Walter? You seem a little… tired or… something." She remembered the _last_ time that he was sitting in front of his stereo system with his music blasting away, she could hardly hear herself think, but this time he had, for some reason, decided to wear headphones, and right now she was sincerely hoping that he hadn't been listening to whatever it was that he had been listening to, loud enough to cause any permanent damage to his ears.

Walter made a show out of glancing around his lab for a moment, hesitant to tell her what had been on his mind. Walter felt immeasurable guilt for even considering telling Astrid the very thing that was on the tip of his tongue. Having Astrid cooped up in the lab all day with him was the very last thing that he wanted to do and he didn't want to make her feel guilty for not staying there with him more often. The two already spent a considerable amount of time together for work, and he wanted her to have more free time away from him and the lab so she could be out there living life. Which he knew must have been extremely difficult for her to do since the most important aspect of her life, her job, couldn't be discussed with anyone outside of the job. Peter and Olivia had been very lucky in that aspect.

"I'm feeling a little lonely today, that's all." He said as his eyes flickered back in her direction for a moment before finally landing on the pie in the fridge again. Walter tugged on the handle of the door until it popped open and then reached inside to retrieve the round pie that she had all covered up in tinfoil. "Peter and Olivia have been a little busy lately and they haven't had a lot of time to stop by for a visit… and Fringe cases haven't been nearly as frequent as they used to be."

"Oh Walter, I'm so sorry I really had no idea…" her voice was laced with sincerity as she spoke each of those words. "If you would like, I could stick around for a little longer? I don't really need to be anywhere at the moment… maybe I could watch a movie with you or something? What would you like to watch?" she asked as she walked over and took the pie out of his hands and placed it on the counter and immediately began looking around for a knife to cut it with.

"No, no. You don't have to do that, dear." He replied as he fidgeted with the end of his tan cardigan sweater.

"Walter, really, I don't mind. I would love to." She said with delight when she finally found a knife and began slicing out a piece of the pie and put it on a plate and handed it over to him, along with a small, white, plastic fork.

Slowly reaching out, Walter took the plate out of her hands and brought it over to his face to smell of the spices that Astrid had used in her pie. His memory had always seemed to fail him, but the one thing that never would was his sense of smell. "Thank you." He said as he dug into its delicate surface and took the first bite, flooding his senses with various different flavors, which caused his mouth to water all over again, craving yet another bite. "Mmmm this is amazing." A smile suddenly spread across his face as he looked up at her, he was already starting to feel better thanks to her.

The door to the lab was suddenly flung open, startling both of them and causing them to jump and face the entrance. Luckily enough for them, it was only Peter.

"We have another case." He said as strode over and sat down on the other side of the table and absentmindedly began cutting himself a piece of Walter's pie as he continued to speak. "Alright, get this. It's at an old asylum that has been abandoned for decades now. Some kids stayed there overnight and they claimed to see some kind of ghosts in there." Peter put a slab of the pie down on another plate and looked up at Walter, who was standing there with a blank expression on his face as he debated on whether or not he should protest against Peter eating a piece of his pie.

"I'm sorry, go on." He muttered, causing Peter to look confused for a moment but then he shrugged it off and continued speaking.

"Of course when Broyles called this in to Olivia, both of us thought that he had finally lost it but he was deadly serious." Peter went quiet as he took a bite of his slice of pie and Walter anxiously glanced over to Astrid who in return rolled her eyes as if to tell him that she would make him another one later. "Anyways, he wants us to go check it out. Olivia is dropping Etta off at the babysitter's house. She said that she would meet us down there."

"But what does this have to do with us? We don't deal with the supernatural, if there is such a thing. I mean it's not like we're the Ghostbusters." Astrid replied as she folded her arms over her chest and watched as the two Bishops dug into her pie.

"Olivia has a theory that it could potentially be a weak spot in the two universes, converging in on that exact spot, ironically. If it is, we might need to amber it… but we need to go in and make sure that it is first…" Peter paused for another as he almost eagerly took another bite. "This pie is great, did you make this Astrid?"

Astrid replied with a nod and then moved to cover up what was left of the pie with the displaced tinfoil and stowed it away back into the fridge. "Thanks, I made it this morning." She smiled and came back over to stand next to Walter who was chewing on another bite of his own piece.

"It just so happens that I found an ambering device that I had been working on some time ago, but for the life of me, I can't remember why I made it." Walter said as he placed the plate aside and walked over to a nearby table to pick up a strange device that resembled an oversized walkie-talkie of some kind. "It's not quite finished yet, but perhaps I can work on it more after we come back… if we should need it, of course." Walter said, almost relieved that Astrid would be in his lab with him for work now, rather than her feeling some form of guilt for him being in the lab by himself for the day.

"Does this remind you of anything?" Peter asked as he leaned back in his chair and laid his fork down on his plate, right next to his unfinished piece of pie. "The apartment that we went to… 6B." Peter asked, eyeing his father. He had been quizzing him all of the time lately, since he had reappeared in this time line, but for what reason, he couldn't say. Walter's only guess was that Peter had been testing him to see if his memories from the _other_ timeline were finally starting to come back to him, just as Olivia's had, and in truth, some of the thoughts that he had been able to pull out of his head lately, he didn't remember having them before and oddly enough, just like Olivia, he was reluctant to fight back against having them. Why would he? They were memories of Peter when he was just a boy, growing up in their old home. It was something that he had wanted to hold onto and never let go of.

"No, I'm afraid not. But perhaps something will turn up soon… But I-I will be getting my things ready." He said as he and Astrid started going about the lab, collecting everything that they could think of that was needed to examine the area, if it was, in fact, the other universe merging with their side, but he wasn't worried about that, not just yet.


	2. The Asylum

**Chapter 2:** The Asylum

"Metropolitan State Hospital." Peter said to himself as Olivia pulled up to a reddish bricked building with steps that led up to the entrance of the building, that had white columns resting on either side of it. It had been abandoned since 1992 and it definitely appeared as though it hadn't been cared for ever since it had been closed down. Of course, they had only just arrived at the administration building which was one of many that was spread out over the hospital grounds. The hospital itself was made up of more than one building and it had had a building for pretty much everything from food services to dorm rooms for both men and women, so there was no doubt that they had had a lot of ground to cover and their work cut out for them this time. The main problem that the group faced was getting the situation under control while they still had a chance, as the hospital was more recently scheduled for demolition and reconstruction, and if they couldn't figure out what was going on in time, there would be a lot of lives at risk, on this side as well as the other. "This place is as good as any to begin our search."

"Yeah…" Olivia muttered as she shut off the engine to her van and gazed up at the large two storied structure right in front of them.

"Is there something wrong?" Peter asked, as his own gaze fell onto his wife who was sitting next to him in the driver's seat, sensing something off in her voice as the word left her lips. He knew her well enough by now to know that something was wrong just from the sound of her voice.

"No. No… I don't think so it's just…" her words cut off for a moment as she continued to study the structure. "I can sense something but I'm not exactly sure what it is yet. Something just feels a little… off."

A smile formed on Peter's face as he reached his hand over and gently ran his fingers through her hair. "I'm sure that it's nothing. I think that this place just seems like it would be one of those places that would actually be haunted. Like on some kind of movie or something."

"Haunted!? Peter, don't be ridiculous." Walter chimed in from the back seat and Astrid, who was sitting right next to him, raised an eyebrow in his direction, hoping he would get the jest of what had been said but as always, he hadn't. He had been going on and on about this all evening as they were gathering their things and getting ready to leave. "There are no such things as ghosts and I'll prove it to you."

"Oh Walter." Astrid said as she pushed open the car door, Peter not too far behind her to help her get all of the equipment out of the back. Normally that job was left to Walter, since everything was his own equipment and he didn't like anyone else handling it since he was afraid of the possibility of them breaking it, but since he was still under doctor's orders to take it as easy as he possibly could until further notice, Peter insisted on doing most of the packing himself. Opening the trunk, Astrid grabbed the molecular cohesion detector from the back, knowing that the four of them would need that particular device more than any other if there actually was a weak spot in the membrane between the two universes. It would be able to detect it, even though they wouldn't be able to amber it until Walter was able to finish working on the ambering device.

"It's too bad that we can't just ask the other side if this place is open over there. That would make this job a lot easier." Peter muttered as he reached inside to grab one of the backpacks that they had packed along with them from the inside. "This is all that we'll be taking with us, for now. I don't think that we'll need anything else." He unzipped the backpack and reached inside, grabbing a flashlight and handed it over to Astrid before reaching inside and grabbing three more. When Olivia came around towards the back of the car, Peter handed her one the flashlights and began looking for Walter to come into view next, but he didn't appear.

"Where is Walter?" he asked as he zipped the backpack up and threw it over his shoulder.

"I don't know, I don't think that he's ready to get out of the car yet." Olivia said as her eyes inched back around towards the building, almost as if she was drawn to it. Peter's eyes followed her gaze and he sighed and looked back towards their car as a thought suddenly dawned on him.

"He doesn't like being around mental institutions…" Peter said as he strode around the side of the vehicle and opened his father's door. "Walter, I know that you don't like being around places like this… but we _really_ need to go inside and check this place out. The sooner that we can get in there and check this place out, the sooner we can get out of here and we can all go home." Peter paused for a moment as he tried to think of another more gentle way of making his father more eager to get inside and check the building out. "You know, I was thinking earlier…" Peter scratched the back of his head and then placed his hand on the side of the vehicle. "We're taking Etta costume shopping for Halloween tomorrow. Would you like to come? We were going to let her pick out her own costume… But I have a feeling that it will probably be something like a ninja warrior." He laughed. "She's too much like her old man sometimes."

"I would love too, Peter." Walter said with a smile as he turned unfasten his seat belt. Peter had realized that he hadn't been around his father as much lately as he would have liked and part of him wanted to ask him to move back in with him, just so long as Olivia was okay with it of course. "I-I know that I shouldn't be nervous to go into places like this but I-I just have flash backs of St. Claire's…" he muttered as Astrid's head suddenly came into view over Peter's shoulder and she reached a hand through the door to let him take hold of it.

"We're all right here for you Walter." She said with a comforting smile and he reached out to take her hand to get out of the vehicle. It was a feeling that was hard for Walter to describe; Peter had always been the one who was able to give him the strength to do whatever needed to be done, once he was right there beside of him. Astrid on the other hand, she had always been able to soothe his nerves and calm him in a way that no one else ever could, and in a way, he would probably never be able to explain how she made him feel.

"Thank you." He said as he firmly planted his feet on the dry grass that covered most of the yard around the front of the building, and then Peter shut the door behind them. Astrid continuously held firmly onto Walter's hand as the Fringe team slowly approached the ominous looking building, and somehow Walter felt an unusual calmness about him as they drew nearer and began walking up the steps that led straight up to the entrance. Peter handed Walter one of the flashlights, making sure that each of them had at least one each, to help them find their way around on the inside, and Astrid, who couldn't hold onto her own flashlight and Walter at the same time, clutched the molecular cohesion detector in her own free hand.

"Well, here we go." Peter said as he readied himself and reached out to push the door open and then clicked on his flashlight and was the first of the four to step inside. Immediately he could smell the musty smell of decaying wood and old paperwork from the tiny offices on the inside of the building. "Where did the kids say that they were staying while they were here?"

"One of them said that they were staying in one of the dorms for the female patients… there were some old beds that were left inside of there." Olivia shook her head from side-to-side as she stepped into the old building right behind Peter. "Apparently, one of the patients that were staying here was murdered in there and they wanted to see if her ghost was still haunting the building."

"So they think that the apparition was this patient?" Peter asked as he turned to glance over at Olivia who had pulled out a map and was checking over it. He had only managed to pick up a few of the details while he was on the phone with Olivia earlier, on his way over to see his father, and was now interested in hearing some of the other details that he had missed out on over the phone.

"They saw more than just the one." Olivia replied as she brushed away a strand of hair that was falling into her eyes. "We need to find our way over to the far side of the hospital grounds; it's one of the buildings that are closer to the forest." She began folding the papers up and tucked the map away inside of her jacket.

"Right, like this place couldn't get any creepier than it already was." Peter said almost sarcastically as he began to lead the way towards the back of the building in search for the back door, dodging fallen lights and tipped over chairs and benches that were in their way. "Whatever happened here, it almost looks like they left in a hurry. There are papers lying in the floor almost everywhere."

" _Or_ some destructive teenagers came in here and wrecked the place some time ago." Olivia aimed her flashlight at some graffiti that lined the walls of the small hallway that they were about to enter into. "I don't know… I'm still getting some kind of weird feelings about this place."

"Me too." Astrid said as she felt herself instinctively drawing in closer to Walter who looked down at her feeling a little surprised himself. Astrid was unsure if she was clutching onto Walter's hand to settle his nerves or her own now. "I've never really been to a haunted house or anything like that before…"

Walter took in a deep breath and squeezed her hand a little tighter, just as she always had when she made an attempt to bring him some form of comfort when he would become nervous. The sight of his assistant becoming ill at ease made him feel all the more eager to solve the mystery at hand of what was going on inside of the hospital, so they could get out faster. He knew now that he had to be even braver for this case, feeling protective over both Astrid and Olivia, and he knew that Peter was feeling the same way. Peter had more in common with his father than he would probably care to admit sometimes but he always do anything for those that he cared for when they were in any kind of danger.

"We'll be alright." Walter almost whispered as he gave her a comforting smile. "I'm sure that we'll figure this out, you'll see."

"Here's the back door." Peter interrupted as he pushed himself against the double doors in the back. The two doors were heavy and made of metal, making it rather difficult for him to budge, which almost causing himself to topple over with them in the process as they went flying open against his weight. Once on the other side, the dim sunlight shone into their eyes causing them to glare out onto the field of buildings that waited for them on the other side, as their eyes began to adjust to the sudden change in lighting. "So, over this way?" Peter asked as he pointed towards the edge of the woods. Olivia gave him a nod and the group started making their way down the cement path towards the dorm rooms. The grass that surrounded the roads had grown to be about knee high, giving the place an almost apocalyptic look about it.

"It almost feels like someone is watching me." Astrid said, once again drawing closer to Walter as each of them began looking around in search for any kind of movement on the property. "They even had a chapel here." Astrid observed, pointing the molecular cohesion detector in general direction of the church.

"It looks like, once they were here, they wouldn't be leaving for anything anytime soon." Peter pointed out. "It almost feels like a prison than it does a hospital."

"That's what they are Peter…" Walter muttered as he looked down at the dirty pathway beneath their feet as the continued to trudge along towards the dorm building, when he too started feeling the unusual sensation of eyes boring down on all four of them. But he wasn't going to admit to it, not yet, his pride wouldn't allow him to until he had more evidence to go off of. After all, he had grown used to the sensation after battling schizophrenia all of these years.

"There, that building should be it." Olivia pointed to the building that was coming into view, just on the edge of the forest like the old map had said.

"Great. Well let's get this over with."


	3. The Journal

**Chapter 3:** The Journal

By the time that the small team had reached the edge of the forest to make their way inside of the patient dorm rooms, night was starting to fill the air and all of them had their flashlights trained straight in front of them, almost as if the light would somehow lead their way around the vicinity like some sort of guiding light. The feeling that someone had been watching them was more prevalent than ever now that they were on the inside of the building, which put all of them a little on the edge.

"Well this place is as good as any to start our search." Peter said as he entered into one of the larger rooms that they had come across since they had arrived. "Perhaps the advisor slept in this room." he pulled off his backpack and callously dropped it on the bed before continuing his search around the room, taking note of every crack in the plaster on the wall, or where the paint was chipping away and in some places there was also more graffiti like there had been out in the hall, but it was all irrelevant. "Let's make quick work out of this; I don't really want to stay here longer than I have too."

"Why? You're not scared are you Peter?" Olivia teased as she patted him on the back as she passed on by him to begin skimming over some of the graffiti on the wall herself.

"No, not at all. But it's starting to get cold in here and there's not a lot that I hate more than the cold." He laughed, but he was cut off by a sudden chill that went down his spine, causing him to shiver but he did his best to ignore it. "I just want to get out of here and take a nice warm bath or something…" he paused once again as he felt a small hand on his shoulder and he turned to see what who it was or what they had wanted, thinking that it might have been Astrid, but was met by nothing but an empty space between him and the wall.

"Is everything okay?" Olivia asked, eyeing her husband who was currently wearing a look of what could only be described as bewilderment on every inch of his face.

"Yeah, but I could have sworn that I felt someone touch my shoulder just a moment ago…" he muttered as he spun around from where he stood to locate where everyone else was standing in the room just to make sure that none of them were playing any kind of prank on him. Walter would have been his best bet out of everyone that was currently in the room with him, but he was standing at least ten feet away and on the opposite side of the bed that was firmly planted in the middle of the room.

"Maybe it's just this place. It _is_ a little creepy…" Olivia admitted as she eyed the vacant space that Peter had been staring into, feeling that something was a little off in the room herself.

"Everything seems normal in here." Astrid chimed in as she focused on the device in her hand, and pulled everyone else's attention away from what was seemingly going on inside of the room. "Perhaps we should check upstairs too or on the other side of this building."

"A very wise idea, Astro." Walter agreed and promptly made his way over to the doorway and stopped right in the middle of it to look back to see if anyone else was following him. "Are you guys coming or not?" he asked before stepping out into the hall and began his search for the stairwell.

"Walter!" Peter called after him. "How would you even know if those steps are safe enough to walk up them? This building has been standing here for a long time."

"There's only one way to find out, Peter. We don't really have much of a choice."

"I can't argue with you there." He reluctantly agreed, hearing Olivia and Astrid's footsteps falling in line behind them. "But you have to let me go up first."

As the stairs finally appeared through the shadows that were encasing the end of the hall, and Peter walked over to them and began studying them with a careful eye before placing his foot on the first step and carefully began making his way up the first step and then the next couple of steps. "They seem sturdy enough. Come on up."

After making their way up to the second floor, the temperature just seemed to plummet yet another five degrees, causing Peter to wrap his jacket ever tighter around his middle. He hated the cold more than anything else and this was becoming an extremely unpleasant experience. "Is it just me or does it actually seem colder up here?" he asked, turning to look at the others.

A thoughtful expression appeared on Astrid's face for a moment as she tried to recall what the temperature had felt like downstairs and then gave a nod. "I guess it does."

"Yeah, I thought so." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and focused his full attention on Walter who seemed to be running the numbers through his head in order to come up with some sort of scientific explanation behind the sudden drop in temperature.

"Do you have something, Walter?" Peter asked as he came closer to him and placed a hand on his shoulder to bring him back to reality.

"No, nothing yet." He said looking him in the eyes. "There must be something pulling the energy out of the air in order for this to happen."

"I've heard that ghosts can do that." Peter said with a light shrug. "I think that I might have heard something about ghosts needing the surrounding energy in order to manifest themselves in some form or another."

"Peter, there are no such things as ghosts." His voice was stern, standing firmly on his position on the matter, which caused Peter to laugh. The man was stubborn with his convictions, but that was part of his charm and one of the many reason why he had begun to admire him over the years.

"That's surprising, especially after what happened between you and William Bell in the other timeline. He created these magnets… I think that they were called soul magnets, and he somehow managed to slip them into Olivia's tea."

"Yes, yes of course." Walter frowned but still seemed a little unconvinced. "Belly had his magnets, but I am not yet sure of what could tether any other soul to this plane of existence…" he paused for a moment, noticing that an essential part of their team had suddenly gone missing. "Speaking of Olivia, where did she go?"

"What are you talking about; she's right… over there…" Peter's head snapped back in the direction of where she had been standing only moments earlier. "Astrid, did you see where she went?"

Astrid shook her head 'no' in response as she wandered over to stand next to Walter and took hold of his arm.

* * *

Olivia couldn't describe the sudden feeling that seemed to just blanket over her, feeling drawn down this long, dark, hallway to the left of the stairwell and without thinking, she just began to follow what only could be described as a feeling that she _needed_ to go in that direction. There was something there that she needed to see or to find and she didn't know exactly what it was, but something was drawing her there. With her flashlight clutched in her right hand, down by her side, she continued to let this feeling guide her. She couldn't stop herself as one foot went on in front of the other, as if someone else had temporarily taken control of her body. She was definitely in this one for the long haul.

* * *

"We need to find her." Peter instinctively pulled out his phone and glared down at the screen. "There's no signal…" he muttered, shoving the useless hunk of metals and plastic back into his pocket and edged himself over to one of the two hallways. There were two of them and he guessed that they had to lead around in a full circle. "OLIVIA!" he screamed down the hall and there was no answer to be heard, so he tried again and there was still nothing.

Peter's heart began pounding away in his chest at the mere thought of losing her, not after everything that they had gone through to be with each other. Taking a deep breath in a faulty attempt to calm himself so he could think more clearly, Peter turned to the other two who were left in his group and nodded his head to the side. "I guess that we better start looking for her then. She might have found something and got distracted." He was trying to reason with himself as he spun on his heel and made his way down the hallway that was nearest to them, assuming that Walter and Astrid had automatically followed along behind him.

"Walter, I don't know about you, but I'm starting to think that this place really is haunted." Peter's voice was deep with worry now as he carefully shined his light into each of the rooms as they passed on by, looking for any signs of movement or even a glimpse Olivia's silhouette.

"I don't see how that's even a little possible." He answered, feeling Astrid's fingers starting to tighten around the upper part of his arm, which led Walter to believe that she was starting to become frightened by what may be in the building as well.

"Walter, I think that Peter might be right. The device hasn't been able to pick anything up. Maybe this place really is haunted."

"Or maybe there is something in or around this building that's vibrating at a high enough frequency and it has triggered our brains into thinking that this building is haunted." He protested, suddenly able to remember an idea that he had heard of once before from William Bell.

"And what might that be, Walter? There's no electricity or active piping in this building. No one has used it in years. And even if it had been; it would have to be just high enough that we couldn't hear it, like a dog whistle. Except for humans, obviously."

Walter let out an aggravated groan, but fell silent as he continued to trudge along behind Peter; almost starting to feel a little defeated when it came to explanations himself, which was something that definitely wasn't easy for him to admit to.

A sudden loud banging noise, like something had just toppled over somewhere to their left, caused the three of them to jump back a couple of steps, almost as if something would come bounding out of the room after them at any given moment if they had stood firmly in place. Astrid had even jumped a little closer to Walter and began clinging to him as her heart began racing away inside of her own chest. She fought to regain control herself, but she had to admit that this was the most scared that she had ever been in quite a long time.

"What the hell was that?" Peter said, being the first to break the silence and then made his way across the hall and threw open the door, only to see Olivia standing in the middle of the room with a book in her hands, staring down at in the darkness. Olivia's flashlight had fallen to the floor next to what appeared to be a toppled over bookshelf and upon further investigation, Peter noticed a small hole in the wall, just where the bookshelf should have been.

"Olivia…" Peter muttered, closing the distance between them. She didn't respond to his voice, so he decided to reach out and touch her arm and she snapped out of what seemed to be some sort of trance.

"Oh Peter… where am I?" her face was clearly expressing her own confusion.

"You don't remember coming in here?" Peter asked, quickly glancing back over to his father and then returned his gaze back to her. "I'll explain later. We're getting out of here… now!" He almost growled and then proceeded to lead Olivia out of the room; Walter and Astrid were in tow.

The floorboards were creaking loudly under their weight as they hastily made their way back down the hallway and down the steps; the small group couldn't get out of there quickly enough. And once they were all safely back inside of their car, Peter suddenly remembered the book that Olivia had been holding when they found her.

"What is that?" he nodded his head towards the red leather bound book that Olivia was still clutching onto. The leather was faded and torn and was all covered in dust as if it had been in that hole in the wall for quite a long time.

Olivia glanced down at the book with the same confused expression that she had been wearing only earlier, like she had forgotten that she was still carrying it. Olivia's free hand nervously reached out and popped open the button that latched the two covers together, and then she opened it to begin flipping through the first couple of pages that were bound together. Each page had yellowed, but the words that had been etched into each page were plainly visible and neatly handwritten in blue ink. "I think that it's a journal."

"A journal? And you don't remember finding it?" Peter asked, looking over at her with worry.

"No. One minute I was standing outside of that hallway with all of you, and the next minute I feel like I'm being drawn down the hallway… and then the next thing that I knew, you were standing right there beside of me." Olivia replied from the passenger side, she guessed that Peter must didn't want her behind the wheel, worried that she couldn't drive if there was something wrong with her.

"You pushed a bookshelf over to get to it." He was more than just a little perplexed now. "How could you even known that the book was back there to begin with?" he said, mostly to himself as he put the keys into the ignition and started backing up until the car was in the right position to drive it back out onto the road and then lurched it forward. Something definitely wasn't adding up.


	4. The Only One

**Author's Note:** The Abandoned Asylum is based on a "real" abandoned asylum that I researched before writing the second chapter of this story, so I could get a better idea of what I wanted the layout to look like before writing it. It's called the _Metropolitan State Hospital_ in Waltham, Massachusetts if anyone would like to google search it to get better visual of the layout. There actually was a female patient who was murdered there by another patient who was a male, and while my story has nothing to do with what happened there (because I honestly don't know any of the specific details  & I already had the story planned out beforehand) I just found that to be something interesting to mention.

 **Chapter 4:** The Only One

The drive back to the lab was mostly silent between the four members of the Fringe team. All four of them were lost in their own train of thought as each of them tried to recollect and make sense of everything that had happened to them back at the asylum, and even Walter was seemingly at a loss for words for any kind of explanation as to why any of that had happened to any of them to begin with.

After Peter parked the car in the Harvard parking lot, the group made their way back inside of the building, not speaking a single word of what happened to each other because they didn't want any of the students that were still lurking about the campus to hear what had happened. Of course, the same could be said about any of their cases, the students had to know that something was not quite right about the lab by now with all of the FBI agents that were constantly hovering around at all hours of the day.

"Let's just say that it was a ghost that was messing with us, why did it target Olivia?" Peter was the first to speak up as soon as the doors were shut behind them. He was mad and understandably so, his wife had been targeted and controlled by something that was unknown to him and there had been nothing that he could have done in order to prevent it from happening.

"I don't know Peter." Walter admitted, as he took a seat in one of the swivel chairs in the main section of his lab. "I-I have a few theories of course. But I am by no means an expert in this area, not like Belly, he was the one who was obsessed with conquering death…" Walter paused for a moment as he tried to focus on the thought process at hand before continuing to speak. "But perhaps Belly's magnets could still be inside of her and this _being,_ as it were _,_ could have found a way to manipulate them… or… it is also quite possible that it targeted her because of her heightened sensitivity to the emotions of others."

"Wait, why would that make me a target, Walter?" Olivia was starting to feel sick, like her nerves were starting to tie a knot into the bottom of her stomach at the mere thought of something unseen being in her body, controlling her every movement.

"In theory, ghosts are the energy that we leave behind after we have died and as you may already know, energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be converted into something else. Your sensitivity to other's emotions enables you to sense changes in another person's brainwaves and the energies that these brainwaves produce, which could also make you an easier target for this… _thing._ "

"So you're basically saying that she was the most vulnerable person in the room." Peter asked as he crossed his arms defensively over his chest.

"In a sense, yes. She was the most open person for this energy to manipulate through an emotional connection alone. As they say, ghosts are often trapped here because of unfinished business…"

"So this ghost probably had some strong emotions of her own." Peter glanced over at Olivia, who still seemed to be as white as a sheet. "Are there any tests that we can do to make sure that she's going to be okay?"

"I will be needing Belly's notes on his soul magnets, so I will know exactly what I am looking for… and perhaps I can check to see if there are any abnormalities in her brainwaves."

"I think that we should wait until tomorrow to do this. I need to speak to Nina about getting the notes before we can really check for anything anyway." Olivia said, suddenly pulling out her cellphone to check for any missed calls from the babysitter. "I mean it is getting kind of late… and I would like to get back home to Etta before she has to go to sleep. We spend enough time away from her already…"

"Are you sure?" Peter asked as he reached out and placed a hand on Olivia's shoulder and gazed down at her with an expression that clearly expressed his worry.

"Yeah." She said with a nod. "I'm fine, Peter. I'm feeling normal now, so I think that everything's going to be okay. I think that I need to skim through the journal… it _has_ to be important or we wouldn't have found it to begin with. I know that I will be up all night reading through it... it has to have some clues in there somewhere. Maybe the journal belongs to the woman who was murdered inside of the asylum. She could have wanted us to find it for a reason."

"Alright, Liv." Peter said before turning around to look at his father. "I guess that we'll drop by early tomorrow, once Olivia can get her hands on those notes. But she's right; we do need to check on Etta before her bedtime." Peter leaned over and gave Walter a hug. "Goodnight, dad." He turned his attention to Astrid and gave her a hug as Olivia said her goodbyes and the two turned to leave for the night.

* * *

Astrid decided to linger around in the lab with Walter for a little longer to get everything prepped for the next day, before going back home to her own apartment. Part of her was worried about him after the long day that all of them had had and another part of her just hated leaving him there in the lab all by himself, especially after all that he had been through lately. But he was also starting to seem different too, in a good way, almost as if these memories that he was starting to regain from the alternate timeline was somehow changing him into what seemed to be a happier person, even his O.C.D. seemed to be lessening somehow. The changes in him were almost unbelievable, but she liked watching him as he seeming started to come out of his shell more and more with each passing day.

"Walter." Astrid said his name softly, causing him to snap out of his train of thought and look over to peer into her eyes. "I was very proud of you today. I think that you were braver than I was." A smile appeared on her face as she crossed the floor to close the distance between them. "I just hope that you're feeling alright."

"Yes, I'm fine." He said, returning her smile and distractedly glanced around his lab. "Are you?" his eyes returned back to meet hers, worry was clearly written all over his face.

"I'm fine too." She replied as she reached out and touched the side of his arm with her tiny hand. He had always seemed like a giant to her in her eyes. Whether it was because of his height or what he had showed her that was capable of doing, he was a big man, whether he believed that it to be true or not. Of course he had made his mistakes, but those mistakes eventually led him to become the man that he had turned into now, and he had the biggest heart that she had ever seen. "Would you like to watch something before I go home?"

"Oh, like what?"

Astrid shrugged. "Zoom, maybe. I know how much you seem to like that movie and it has been a long time since I've seen it."

"That sounds like a splendid idea!" He exclaimed, as he made his way up the steps and over to his office and Astrid followed along behind him. Walter crossed the length of his office and made his way over to the messy stack of DVD's and VHS tapes that were stacked up on a table next to his small television set and began searching through them in search of Zoom for the two of them to watch. "We could watch the movie in the lab." Walter said as he suddenly took notice of Astrid standing there in the doorway, watching him hopelessly search through his stack of DVD's.

"We don't have too; it's getting kind of late and after the day that we've had, your bed just seems a little more comfortable to sit on than one of those swivel chairs out there in the lab. And it's getting colder in here too." She said as she stooped over to take her shoes off before making herself at home in his bed and he gave a nod before turning his attention back to what he had been doing. After going through a couple of stacks of his movies he finally managed to find just the one that he was looking for and popped it in into the DVD player and joined Astrid beneath the covers with the remote in hand.

"Are you certain that your father won't worry about you being late?" he asked as the opening of the movie started to play.

"I sent him a message on the way over to let him know that I wanted to stay over at a friend's house to watch a movie before I came home." She quickly pulled her cellphone out to see if her father had responded to her text message and then nodded. "He got my message and he said that it was just fine." She smiled as she spoke.

"That's good." he said as he glanced over to her with a smile and then back to the television. "I have a sudden craving for popcorn…"

"We don't have any." She shook her head as she kept both eyes trained on the screen. "But I will have to remember to pick some up at the store tomorrow." She made a mental note of it in her head and put her cellphone away.

The movie went by slowly as the two kept their attention trained on the screen for most of the movie, making small talk every once in a while, commenting on certain actors or characters that were on the screen at the time. And a little over half-way through the movie, Astrid felt her eyelids starting to grow heavier and she curiously glanced over to Walter who had gone completely silent and found that he had already fallen to sleep himself which brought a smile to her face. Astrid couldn't help but take notice of how peaceful the man looked as he lay there; seemingly oblivious to all of the stress and worry that he seemed to carry around with him on a daily basis. She couldn't blame him for dozing off. It was nice and warm beneath the covers, regardless of what the rest of the room might have felt like and she found herself not wanting to budge from the warmth of the collected heat beneath the covers either.

Curling up even deeper beneath the blankets, Astrid allowed herself to let her eyes shut and she drifted off to sleep, not wanting to get up to face the cold weather again just to get home. She was warm and comfortable and sleepy, and she felt safe enough to drift off to sleep right there where she way laying, so she didn't see any reason to get out of bed again and she couldn't force herself to do it even if she tried.

* * *

Early that morning, Walter's eyes fluttered open and he felt something heavy lying there against his chest, causing him to glance down to see what it was and found Astrid there, snuggled up against his body beneath the covers. At first he couldn't help but feel a little confused by seeing her just lying there, but then he remembered that the two of them had been watching a movie and they must've drifted off to sleep. He thought about waking her, but after debating with himself, he decided that he couldn't bring himself to do it. Astrid had a calm look about her face and all of her stress seemed to have completely vanished from all of her features and he couldn't bring himself to disturb her from such a peaceful state.

Even at his age, he couldn't help but think that Astrid was an attractive younger woman and his eyes started to drift over some of the softer features on her face as she laid there against his chest, and then that's when he noticed that his arm was around her middle and he quickly pulled it away. What had he been thinking? _Was this the work of my subconscious mind?_ He thought, and shook his head 'no' in response against his pillow, causing Astrid to stir and open her eyes.

"W-What's wrong?" she asked looking drearily up at him from where she was still laying against him.

"N-Nothing's wrong, dear." He nervously sputtered. "I-It appears that we must have fallen asleep while we were watching the movie."

Astrid slowly nodded against his chest and then her eyes widened in realization and she sat bolt upright in the bed. "Oh, Walter… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to fall asleep in your bed. I didn't really want to get out into the cold weather again."

"Astrid." Walter said, in an attempt to soothe her, as he sat up in bed himself to meet her at eyelevel and then reached out to touch her arm. "It's okay. Really. It is. Please don't worry about this." He smiled, although he didn't want to admit to her that he might have actually enjoyed waking up to see her just lying there against him.

Astrid gave him an uncertain nod and sighed, before looking him in the eyes again. "I actually slept really well." She admitted as she ran her fingers through the back of her hair in an attempt to straighten it up a little.

"So did I." Walter admitted in return as he placed his hands back onto his lap and gazed at the television screen that was looping the DVD idle screen that was bouncing off of the sides of the screen. In reality he was trying to make a show of pretending to distract himself in order to keep from embarrassing her any further by watching her in her frustrated state, but what happened next came as a surprise to him. Walter felt the warmth of her small hand take his hand into her own which caused him to look back over to her in shock.

"Walter…" she paused as her eyes drifted down to their hands. "While you were gone, I missed you a lot more than I ever thought possible. And I know that I've told you that many times before, but I… I think that I may have realized why… long ago. But I was afraid to admit it."

"What do you mean?" he felt his eyebrow involuntarily rise in wonder of what she might have meant.

"I think that I might… have certain feelings for you. Feelings that I have tried to suppress…" She answered, her voice barely above a whisper as she spoke. "I've tried to ignore them but I haven't been able to. I mean I do spend a lot of time with you in the lab and I've seen all of these wonderful things that you're capable of doing… you're a good man, Walter…"

Astrid's face was starting to grow even redder by the second as she continued to speak, not that she could help how she felt about him, but the fact that she was admitting it to him was more than enough to make her want to jump inside of the deprivation tank and never come back out again. Astrid wasn't expecting him to return her feelings for him; in fact she kind of hoped that he wouldn't because she knew that the difference in their age was far too vast for them to make anything work out between them. "It's silly, isn't it?" she prodded when he didn't speak up.

"No, I don't find it silly at all…" he admitted to her. "I can't help but admit that I enjoyed waking up, to seeing you there, lying against me. But I know that all of this is wrong…" he began absentmindedly rubbing his thumb over the soft skin on the back of her hand. "I know that I would be bad for you. Not only because of my age, but because of who I am. I wouldn't be able to make you happy…"

"Please don't say that Walter…" she said as she reached out her hand and gently placed it against his cheek. The contact with her skin suddenly caused his skin to tingle in response to her touch. "I love that you're eccentric. You're not boring." She teased. "I think that you're kind and caring. You're brilliant and you have shown me things that I never thought were possible before I met you. And you have always been there for me over the past eight years that we have been working together. I… I want to be with someone that I can share my life with and that's you Walter. I would have to hide my life away from everyone else… and I just don't want a relationship like that."

Walter couldn't help but smile at her words of praise as she spoke but he was starting to become at a loss for words the more that she spoke about the two of them and their situation, but in the end he nodded in understanding. "So what are we to do?" he asked, giving her a curious look now that their feelings for one another were mostly out there in the open now.

Astrid nervously leaned over and placed her lips onto his, keeping her hand in place on his cheek as the two made contact. A sudden burst of energy went through Walter's body, stemming from his lips and ending in his fingertips and toes and he suddenly found himself kissing her back, despite his conscious mind protesting his decision to kiss her. It was an impulse and one that he couldn't ignore or even control, just like most of the other impulses that he often had.

As their kiss ended, the two looked into each other's eyes and returned each other's smile as he felt Astrid's thumb gently began rubbing against the side of his cheek. "I suppose that we're dating now." Walter chuckled as he leaned in for another kiss, this one lasting a little longer than the first one, and Astrid let her hand begin wander through the back of his messy curly hair.

"You could say that." she answered as she pulled away and rested her forehead against his for a brief moment. Part of him wanted to push her back against the pillow and continue to kiss her, because now that he knew what she tasted like, his impulses were wanting more. But those thoughts were against his better nature, which kept him pinned right to the mattress where he was currently sitting. As he sat there, all of the impulses that were currently surging through every fiber of his being was becoming harder and harder for him to fight against, and for a moment, he almost started to curse his obsessive compulsive disorder, but then tried to ignore that thought in order to focus on something else that had been blaring in his mind from the moment that their lips had made contact.

"This is wrong." He suddenly concluded and pulled away from her and turned to push himself off of the bed. Astrid continued to sit there, staring up at him with her dark brown eyes in confusion. "Being with me… an older man… I know that it will mess you up in ways that you can't possibly begin to imagine and it would be selfish of me to take advantage of you."

Astrid stood up, ignoring the cold floor beneath her bare feet as she made her way around the bed to meet him half way. It was just like him to try to protect her by putting her happiness before his own. "You're not taking advantage of me, Walter. Let me make my own decisions on what's best for me. I know that you're just looking out for me… but I'm a big girl and I can make my own decisions, okay?" she reached up once again and began running her fingers through his curly hair once again, pulling him a little closer in the process. "I can't help how I feel and neither can you… so I think that it might be for the best if we just embrace this and see where it goes." she said as she stood on her tip toes in an attempt to peck his lips one more time and to her surprise, he let her.

"Okay…" he muttered to which Astrid gave a satisfied nod before turning to walk back over to her side of the bed and began putting her shoes on. "I have to make a trip home to change clothes and then I have to pick a few things up from the store and I will be right back."

Walter nodded and the glanced over through the blinds that were covering the windows that separated the lab from his office and a thought suddenly crossed his mind. "O-Olivia and Peter… what will we tell them?"

Astrid let out a frustrated groan. "I didn't think about that." she admitted as she stood once again and made her way back over to him. "Nothing for now, I guess. But we'll think of something." She gave him a warm embrace and a peck on the cheek and he returned both, before she headed on out the door, leaving Walter alone in his lab with his own thoughts once more.

 _Walter, this is not the end. We're going to win this. And when we do, we're going to be drinking strawberry milkshakes in the lab and not even remember this happened._

"I remember..." he said out loud, mostly to himself, in reply to Astrid's words that were currently drifting through his thoughts. She had been right at the time of course, but he somehow still remembered it, all of it, and he wasn't sure of what he should tell to all of them or if he should say anything at all.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Honestly, I have been nervous about writing this chapter for a while now because I know how some of the fandom feels about this pairing due to the age difference, and understandably so. But this story won't focus on specifically them, I just wanted to rip the band aid off and establish the relationship in this storyline… I'll do my best to not get either of them too out of character. Next chapter will be a Polivia chapter, as well as more information on the journal as the two stay up all night to read it.


	5. Things That Go Bump In The Night

**Authors Note:** I must admit that I was almost certain that I was going to get flamed for that last chapter, but thank you for sticking with this story. I've been debating on what I wanted to do with the journal and what it was or what it can do, because I had several ideas, but I've managed to settle on this one. I hope that you enjoy the new chapter.

 **Chapter 5:** Things That go bump In The Night

"Daddy?" Etta said as she walked over to the chair that he was sitting in, clutching a small book in both of her hands. Peter had realized by now that her phrasing of the word 'daddy' had often meant that she wanted him to something for her and of course he was always happy to oblige to anything that she ever needed or wanted.

"Yes, kiddo?" he asked smiling over at his daughter as she crawled up onto his lap and made herself comfortable against his chest. "What do you have there?"

"Could you read me this story tonight?" she handed over the small book and Peter reached out to take it into his own hand to examine it. It was one of her favorite books that she had him read to her at least twice a week and it was written by none other than Doctor Seuss. _If I Ran The Circus._

"I sure can." Peter replied as he wrapped his arms tightly around his young curly haired daughter, and picked her up to carry her into her room. She was already dressed and ready for bed, which must've meant that Olivia had already given her a bath and sent her on her way for story time. Leaning over, Peter pulled back all of the covers on Etta's bed and sat her down on the edge of it so she could lie back against the pillow. Once she was comfortable, he covered her up joined her on the other side of her small bed and pulled her close to him before opening the book to begin reading the story to her. Peter cleared his throat before he started reading in what he thought was his best impersonation of the narrator of _Cat in the Hat_ , causing Etta to start giggling, and as a father, that sound was almost like heaven to his ears. Etta was a blessing to Bishop Family and Peter didn't want to imagine life without her. He was thankful for what his father had done for their little family because he knew that it somehow meant that they got a second chance to be together again, however, Walter still refused to tell them about what had happened and why he had disappeared, and even though he was beyond curious, he was willing to let it go until his father was ready to tell them all about it.

* * *

After story time had finished, even though that had been rather difficult with Etta continuously handing her dad more and more books to read to her, Peter finally managed to get their daughter settled in for the night and slipped away to join Olivia in their own bed, ready for a long night's worth of sleep himself after their long, adventurous day.

"Liv, we've had a long day. Don't you think that you should put that away and at least _try_ to get some sleep. Something tells me that we're in for an even longer day tomorrow." Peter asked as he turned around beneath the covers to face his wife who had propped herself up against the head of the bed with her glasses on, squinting down at the faded letters on the yellowing pages of the journal as she tried to make out what it said.

"What makes you say that?" Olivia asked as she absentmindedly reached over to run her fingers through his soft brown hair.

"Oh, I don't know." He muttered as he closed his eyes to savor her gentle touch. "I don't think that we've seen the last of that place. And _if_ we do go back there tomorrow, we're going earlier when it's a little warmer outside."

"That sounds fair enough to me." Olivia chuckled, flipping to the next page in the journal.

"You know that's going to be waiting for you to read tomorrow." Peter hinted once again in an attempt to get her to put it away.

"I know." Olivia replied as she suddenly shifted her attention to Peter. "I'm just feeling… violated, almost as if no shower would ever be long or hot enough to get rid of the feeling that something we couldn't even see was inside of me, controlling me. And I need to know why this journal is or was so important to her… why did she want me to find it?"

"So it is her journal then?"

"Yeah, I think so. It belonged to a woman named Lydia and so far it just seems like any other journal to me." She said with a light shrug before continuing. "She mentions that the father of one of her friend died from a heart attack and how upset that it made her, and how her family members came to see her while she was in there, things that she liked to do to pass time… hobbies… but she says that the hospital itself felt more like a prison." Olivia turned the page in the journal another time and pressed a finger down on a page that Peter couldn't see from his position on the bed. "Robert's name keeps popping up, and I'm starting to think that she may be in love with him."

"Do you think that he could be her killer?" Peter thoughtfully asked, opening his eyes to gaze up at her.

"I don't know… it's possible I guess. I just need to find out…"

"Let's do that tomorrow, alright?" Peter said as he reached out and gently took the book from her fingertips and turned over to place it on the table beside of their bed, right near his own cellphone. Olivia didn't protest against her husband's last attempt at making her get some rest, but a slightly amused look appeared on her face and when he turned back around to face her again, she gave him a look pouty look of defeat. She considered herself to be so very lucky to have him, to keep her grounded, and to remind her to take care of herself every once in a while, because if she didn't, she would overwhelm herself with all of the stress of each and every single last case that they went up against.

"You win." Olivia said, knowing that both of them could use the sleep. Taking her glasses off and laying them on the beside table, Olivia turned out the light and then leaned over to kiss Peter goodnight before she snuggled up against him to finally try to get some shut eye.

* * *

About an hour had passed when a loud clattering noise came from downstairs, causing Peter to stir. It had almost sounded like someone or something was trying to break in through their front door, which prompted him to nudge Olivia awake, and normally he would have been the one to get up and check it out, but since his nerves were on edge and Olivia was the one with the gun, he wanted both of them to get up together to do this as a team.

"Liv, I think that someone is trying to break in." he whispered in her ear, before he pushed himself up and out of bed and made his way down the hall to Etta's room. The first thing that he both needed and wanted to do was to check in on his daughter's to make sure that she was safe and still sleeping soundly in her bed. Peaking in, he noted that Etta was sound asleep and once he was satisfied that there was nothing in her room, he closed her door and proceeded to make his way down the stairs to the living room and Olivia was close behind him on his heels.

"It's cold in here." Peter muttered under his breath. He could almost swear that he could see his breath coming out of his mouth as he exhaled. "You don't think that the ghost somehow followed us home, do you Olivia?" Peter turned his head to look over his shoulder at Olivia who seemed to have all of her attention focused on the kitchen, looking for any signs of movement that may have been inside of the house. That's when he heard Etta screaming from somewhere above them in her room and his heart immediately dropped inside of his chest.

Without thinking Peter sprinted back up the steps looking for some kind of weapon that he could grab and use against the intruder once he was inside of her room, but he didn't see anything right offhand that looked heavy and hard enough to wack someone in the back of the head with. Reaching her door, he threw it open and began snapping his head from side-to-side as he looked around the room for any signs of what might have caused her distress. Nothing was in there, except for Etta who was sitting in the corner with her little arms wrapped around her knees and her head was down like she was trying to keep from looking at something that was there in the room.

"Etta! Mommy and daddy are both here. You're safe now." He said as he ran over to her and stooped down beside of her on one knee, Olivia not too far behind him. "What did you see?" he asked as Etta looked up at him with tears streaming down her face and quickly wrapped her arms around his neck. The sight of his daughter crying was starting to stir something deep within him.

"A woman." She sobbed. "I never saw her before… she pulled the blankets off of my bed and then she tried to pick me up."

"What did she look like?" Olivia asked, reaching a hand out and placed it on the little girl's back in an attempt to soothe her.

"She had long black hair… and… she was wearing a white gown…" she said as she tried her best to recollect everything that she saw during those few moments of terror.

"Did you see how she left the room?" Peter asked.

Etta shook her head 'no' in response. "She was right there… and then she wasn't."

Peter wished that this was just something that Etta had dreamed or a coincidence of some kind, but after all that they had experienced only a little earlier that day, he wasn't even going to dare to make Etta feel as though the two of them didn't believe her about what she had seen. Sighing, Peter picked her up and kissed her on her cheek. "You can come sleep with us for the rest of the night… I'll make sure that she's not around to bother you anymore tonight." He said and looked towards Olivia who seemed to have zoned out as she stared at an empty space on the opposite side of the room.

"And your mommy can help. You comin', Liv?" he asked, causing her to snap out of her trance like state and she gave him a nod.

"Yeah." She said with a nod of her head.

The rest of the night went by quietly and crawled on by as both Peter and Olivia lay wide awake in bed, with a sleeping Etta snuggled up between the two of them. The young girl seemed content and at peace now that she was sleeping in her parent's bed and wasn't worried about the woman who had been in her room and was now able to rest snugly between the two of them.

Groggily, Peter and Olivia got out of bed that morning and got Etta dressed and ready to go with them to visit Walter in his lab in the basement of Harvard. Normally, she would have left her with a baby sitter or with her sister, but today she wanted to keep her nearby just in case the woman that Etta saw somehow showed herself to Etta again.

"You're making strawberry milkshakes? Really? In this weather?" Peter asked when he first stepped through the doors to the lab, only to notice that his father had strawberries and ice cream out on a desk amongst other things that he used to make his favorite blend of strawberry milkshakes.

"There's no such thing as a bad time for strawberry milkshakes, son." Walter said with a smile as he poured some into a glass and handed it over to Peter and then poured another one for Olivia and Etta. "No matter the weather… there are straws right over there." He said as he pointed to the corner of the table.

Peter didn't make any objections to his father's proposal; he just reached out to take one of the straws so he could take a sip of his father's concoction to appease him for the time being, before speaking again. "We had one hell of a night." Peter said as he rubbed his brow with the back of his thumb and took a seat in front of the table. Olivia sat her drink aside and helped Etta up onto one of the other seats before taking one herself.

"Why? What happened?" Walter asked as he paused everything that he had been doing to listen to what Peter had to say.

"Well, I think that the apparition from the asylum somehow managed to follow us back home." He started and then took another drink of his milkshake. "Etta saw something in her room and Olivia called in to ask for a photo of the woman who was murdered there. Maybe Etta can identify her."

Walter looked down at his young granddaughter and then back over to Peter, seemingly startled by the news. "She wasn't hurt was she?"

"No, she's just fine. Just a little shook up is all." He said with a nod of his head.

"Good." He with a smile and noted that the young girl was absorbed by the taste of strawberry milkshake as she continued to drink it through the straw. "She seems to like that."

"Well Walter, you do make great milkshakes." Olivia teased, as she checked her phone that started vibrating around in her pocket. "It's Astrid… she says that her father is in the hospital… he's had a heart attack… and that when she found him he was saying something about a woman with long black hair."

"She found him like that?" Peter asked in confusion. "Wasn't she with him all night?"

"No, I'm afraid not." Walter said, his head tilting down towards the table. "She was with me last night. She stayed over to watch a movie with me here in the lab, and we accidentally went to sleep. Astrid didn't leave here until about an hour ago."

Peter nodded uncertainly as he watched his father as he started to collect his things in order to put them away and then stored what was left of the strawberry milkshake in the freezer for later.

"Peter…" Olivia said. "Lydia's journal said that one of her friend's fathers died of a heart attack. This can't be a coincidence."

"It can't be." Peter agreed with a nod of his head as he continued to watch his father as he put on his jacket and flat cap to leave the lab. Something just seemed a little off with the way that he was acting but he couldn't quite put his finger on it just yet but perhaps he was just imagining it after all the excitement that they had had during the past twenty-four hours. "I guess that we should get going then."

* * *

As soon as they arrived at the hospital, Olivia made her way over to the front desk to ask where they were keeping a Mr. Farnsworth and the person behind the desk glanced at their computer and gave her the room number and then Walter took off in the lead to find the room. It was a big hospital and its series of hallways twisted and turned almost creating a labyrinth for them to find their way through to get to Astrid's father's room.

"Astrid…" Walter muttered, as he stepped into the doorway where Astrid sat on her father's bedside holding his hand. "We came as soon as we heard… I-Is he going to be alright?"

Astrid slowly shook her head 'no' in response as she looked up at him with her dark brown eyes that were now bloodshot from crying. Walter took a few steps closer to her father's bed and reached out to gently pat her on her back, just as Olivia, Peter and Etta came through the doorway.

"I think that I just knew that something like this would happen after… after the other Astrid crossed over from the other side to tell me that her father had passed away… I-I think that I'm very lucky to have him here with me for this long…" she said as she stood up and buried her head in Walter's chest and he in return wrapped his arms around her in an attempt to bring some form of comfort to her like she had for him so many times before.

Peter was now able to put all of the pieces together on why his father had seemed a little off earlier; it all had to do with Astrid. He knew that something must have happened between the two of them last night, but now wasn't the right time to bring something like that up and neither was the woman with the long black hair that Etta had seen, probably at nearly the same time that Astrid's father was starting to have the heart attack as if it were some sort of omen. They had unleashed something very powerful and now they needed to find a way to put an end to it.


	6. Ice Cold

**Chapter 6:** Ice Cold

Hours seemingly ticked away as the small family gathered around Astrid and her father as he peacefully passed away. Astrid had sat there quietly next to him the entire time on his hospital bed, gently holding onto his calloused hand and Walter had stood next to her with his hand on her shoulder, not wanting to leave her side either. Olivia eventually took Etta outside after having called the babysitter to come and pick her up, not wanting the young girl to have to experience someone as traumatic as someone dying at such a young age. Olivia knew that she couldn't keep her from it forever, but for now she felt as though it were her duty as a mother to at least try.

Back in the lab, Olivia and Astrid went off to the side of the lab by themselves to talk and Astrid almost immediately buried her head in her hands as Olivia placed her hand on her back in an attempt to bring her friend some much needed comfort. Peter took this as an opportunity to pull Walter into his office to have a talk with him.

"I need to have a talk with you." Peter said as he crossed his arms and sized up his father for a brief moment as he tried to figure out just where to begin. He had gone over what he had wanted to say to his father in his head over and over again that entire day, but yet he couldn't think of just how he wanted to approach the thought of his father being with Astrid, the thought almost baffled him.

"Yes, Peter, I gathered as much when you decided to pull me aside and shut the door to my office." He huffed as he took off his long coat and placed it on the coat rack in the corner of the room, and then his hat, before turning to face his son. "This has to do with Astrid, doesn't it? Otherwise you would have spoken to me out there in front of the two of them."

"I'm just trying to understand what's going on between the two of you." Peter said, his head tilting towards the side. "She's half of your age, Walter."

"Don't you think that I know that? I told her the exact same thing… but…" Walter turned to glaze out of the window into the lab just to catch a glimpse of Astrid and then took a step closer to get a better look. "I don't think that I fully understand it myself, son. Everything seems to be different between the two of us since I… _returned._ I'm different now and I can feel it and so can you… I'm not the same man that I used to be."

"No, you're not. You're more like _him_ , the Walter from my time line." Peter replied as he came up behind him and placed a steady hand on his shoulder.

"I _am_ him Peter…" he said, turning around to gently place his hand on his cheek. "It's almost as if some kind of door has been opened for me… and maybe that's why…"

"Walter, whatever the reason may be, she is still your assistant and she is still much younger than you are. This isn't going to work and one of you _will_ get hurt. Either she will find someone else or… you know what? I don't even want to think about _that_ right now..." _not after what happened to Astrid's father._

"Neither of us can help how we feel towards one another… I just wish it were so easy." He muttered and took a step back away from Peter to lean against the glass paneling when he felt the fingers on his left hand starting to twitch around uncontrollably and he brought his hand up to hold it in his other in order to steady them. "I-I know that I shouldn't… it's wrong… and I know that."

Peter shook his head 'no' but then glanced out into the lab just over his father's shoulder and watched Astrid with his wife for a moment, seeing how distraught Astrid was over her father tugged away at his insides. He had been in a similar position to Astrid not too awfully long ago, but fortunately enough for him, his father had been returned to him as if by luck, but he knew that Astrid wouldn't have that very same luxury and that left him with a feeling of indescribably guilt. "No, dad. I think that she needs you right now, just as much as you need her… just go out there and spend some time with her. She will need you to get through this."

Walter looked up into Peter's eyes and gave him a slow, almost uncertain nod, but he understood the meaning behind his words. Astrid had lived alone with her father in their small apartment for quite a long time now and the two were incredibly close to one another, and just like that, he was gone within a blink of an eye.

Pushing himself up off of the glass, Walter turned to leave his office with Peter following along closely behind him. Walter took slow and careful steps towards the seat that Astrid was sitting in, not wanting to disturb her, but Olivia took notice of him walking towards them and glanced up to meet his gaze and immediately stood up to offer him the seat beside of her which he graciously took. "Thank you." He whispered, looking up at her as he placed an arm around Astrid's back and she responded to his touch by leaning over against his chest. He had never been one that was necessarily good at comforting someone when they needed it the most, not even with his wife after their son had died, but he wanted to be there for her, just as she had always been there for him.

Shifting her footing, Olivia turned to look at Peter and then back over to Astrid. "Hey Astrid, would you like a place to stay for the night? We have a guest room if you would to come over, we would love to have you."

Astrid glanced up from her place against Walter's chest and smiled at her gratefully, but shook her head 'no' in response. "I do appreciate the offer though." She sat up and wiped some tears from her cheeks with her long sleeves. "But I think that I'll keep Walter company here in the lab tonight… if he doesn't mind?" she glanced over to him with questioning eyes.

"No, of course not."

"Thanks. There's a bed that folds up in my office, I think that could use that." she stood up in sudden realization that there were still some things that she needed to do before the night came. "You wouldn't mind taking me by our… my apartment to pick up a few things would you? I don't want to sleep in these tonight." She said as she gestured towards the clothes that she was wearing.

"I'm here for anything that you need, Astrid." Olivia nodded.

* * *

The trip to Astrid's apartment was a very short trip. Astrid didn't want to stay inside of there for very long with the fresh wound of what had just happened still vivid in her mind. She quickly went inside and grabbed a suitcase and opened up on the side of her bed and threw some pajamas into it along with a few outfits to last her for a couple of days, just long enough to allow her enough room to breathe and regain her footing before going back there. Astrid knew that it would take much longer for her to heal than that, but she just wasn't ready to face this right now.

"Thank you for doing this." Astrid said to Olivia as they stepped back into the lab. Peter was the last to come through the door carrying Astrid's suitcase, it was not that it was a heavy bag, but he offered to do it anyway.

"Oh, it's no problem." Olivia said as she wrapped her arm around her small shoulders to give her a hug. "If you need anything else, we're just a phone call away."

"Don't hesitate to ask us." Peter chimed in as he crossed the lab to put all of Astrid's belongings away in her office.

"I won't." Astrid nodded and pulled away out of the hug and then glanced around the lab just as Peter resurfaced from her office. "Thank you."

"We need to head on out to pick up Etta." Peter said, leaning over to hug Astrid as he passed. "Don't let Walter bother you too much, alright?" he teased as he backed away.

"I think that the two of us will be alright." She insisted with a smile. Walter was probably the best distraction that she had for the time being, because there was never a dull moment when the two of them were in the lab together. Walter was always doing some kind of fascinating experiment and even as bad as she hated to admit it, she even enjoyed some of the more disgusting cases that the two of them had investigated and explored together, and what fascinated her even more was that none of it _ever_ seemed to bother him. To her, he always seemed to just light up like a kid on Christmas morning when they had brought him some new puzzle to solve.

"I think that we'll be going then. We'll try to drop by early in the morning… if we can get Etta ready." Olivia said as she turned to leave the lab and Peter followed her out.

"Well now that we have the place to ourselves…" Walter suddenly spoke up from the floor of the lab. He reached out to open up the fridge and eyed the strawberry milkshake blend that he had made earlier that day. "I don't know if this is still good or not, but I made this _just_ for you." He brought the container over and grabbed a glass from off of the counter top on the way over. Stopping just in front of her, Walter tipped the container over and poured what was left of the milkshake into the glass and handed it to her.

"Oh, and what's the occasion?" she raised an eyebrow before tilting the glass over to take a drink from the glass and Walter watched her with wonder, hoping that she would like it.

"I think that we're both aware of what that occasion is." He said with a raise of a brow and smiled before leaning over to give her a quick peck on the cheek. "Peter knows about the two of us. He knows me very well…"

"Of course he does, he's your son."

Walter nodded in response and walked over to sit the container down on a random lab table, before taking a seat. What Olivia had said earlier about the journal had been weighing heavily on his mind for most of the day. Had this ghost been the one to cause her father's heart attack? And if it actually was, what were they dealing with? What more was it capable of doing? Why was it doing it? Why was it targeting them? Who would be next? It was a new puzzle for him to figure out and unfortunately, he didn't think that he would be able to solve this one. Perhaps there was nothing scientific about this case for him to solve… that was the thought that terrified him the most.

The look of defeat must have been clearly written all over his face, because the next thing that Walter was aware of was Astrid's hand caressing his cheek, causing him to look up into her dark brown eyes.

"Walter, what's wrong?" she asked, using her thumb to stroke the side of his face.

He shook his head 'no' in response, still felling rather uncertain on whether or not he should actually dispose of any information that he had overheard earlier. Olivia and Peter must have had a reason for keeping this a secret from her after all, hadn't they? Walter had never been good at making these calls because he could never see the consequences of those actions, even when they were there in front of him, screaming out for him to pay attention to them. But she deserved to know.

"We've just had a long day." He said, with a frown. "Olivia and Peter, they said that there might have been something in their house last night. They didn't know what it was but it seemed to really startle Etta… she's the one that saw… whatever it was."

"Maybe she just had a bad dream."

"Perhaps." He nodded but held his gaze on hers. "I'm sorry about what happened to your father. He seemed to be such a kind man."

"He was…" Astrid replied as tears started to form in her eyes again, prompting Walter to stand up and take the milkshake out of her hand and sat it aside before pulling her into an embrace. "I'm sorry, Walter… I didn't mean to…"

"No, dear. Don't apologize." he said as he kissed the top of her head and squeezed her a little tighter. "Let's get ready for bed, it's getting late… and then perhaps we can watch another movie?"

Astrid pulled back a little and looked up at him, placing her hands on his chest. "I think that I would like to spend some time alone tonight, if that's okay with you? I have a lot to think about…"

"Of course." Walter nodded.

Astrid smiled gratefully up to him before she stood up on her tip toes in order to give him a kiss goodnight, and Walter's hand's almost instinctively dropped to her waist as he returned her kiss. Astrid balanced herself against him using one hand but used the other to reach up and run her fingers through his curly hair, just as she had earlier. Walter also couldn't help but notice that the faint taste of strawberries still lingered on in her mouth after drinking the milkshake that he had given to her and to him it was almost heavenly.

"I think that could get used to this." He whispered after the two had parted.

"You better…" she teased, patting his chest where her hand had been resting. "I think that I'm going to go try to get some sleep now. Goodnight, Walter." She stepped back, giving him a smile before she turned and walked off, leaving Walter with nothing to do but to do the same. It was nice to have company in his lab again that night, it wasn't something that he was normally used to, but he was grateful to have her there, he only wished that there was something more that he could do to comfort her.

* * *

Walter found himself standing at the foot of his bed glancing around his office, unsure of how he had gotten there. His first thoughts were that he had been sleep walking, but the faint whispers of his name told him otherwise.

"Who's there?" he called out, but there was no answer. "Astrid? Is that you?"

"No, Walter. It's me." A disembodied voice replied. "Don't tell me that you have forgotten about me already."

"Who are you?"

"You don't remember me? I think that I'm hurt. Don't tell me that your new assistant has replaced me."

"Carla?"

"Walter, don't play coy with me. You've always cared for Astrid, but you were always too afraid to get close to her, or to even say her name, because you thought that you would lose her… just like you lost me." Her voice came out as if she was taunting him and it chilled him right to his core. She had come to him once, just like she had now, and he knew that she had been a hallucination before, but why was she coming to him now? Was there a point to it? "What's changed Walter? Didn't your son ask you that very question earlier? I think the answer is that _you_ have changed, but not in a way that you hoped. _He's_ still in your head and there's a piece of him that still remains here in this lab… I think that you and I both know exactly what I'm talking about."

"No, you're wrong! That future didn't happen because of what I did. I made sure of it… t-those pieces of my brain aren't in there… they can't be."

"Are you sure about that, Walter? Your memories of what happened in the future are still intact and they're probably a lot more vivid to you that some of your more recent memories."

Walter's head suddenly snapped in the direction of his desk on the right hand side of the office where Carla sat with her legs crossed, just as she had once before. "You're getting warmer…" she continued to taunt. "Come on; don't make me play this game with you again." Walter turned his body to face her, but he didn't budge.

"I know what you want me to find. But you're wrong… I've changed and… I-I have Peter and Astrid now… and the rest of my family. I can't hurt them, not again."

" _You_ have changed, but _he_ hasn't Walter. And he's still part of you…"

"Walter, hey Walter wake up!"

"W-What?"

"Walter, hey… hey… shhh… you were talking in your sleep." Astrid's voice was suddenly pulling him out of what could only be described as a nightmare, and before he knew it he was back in his bed underneath all of the covers with Astrid who was on her knees beside of him. "I heard you all of the way in my office… I was worried."

"I'm sorry to have woken you… I-I normally don't talk in my sleep…" he mumbled, squinting up at her in the darkness. Walter suddenly became aware that she had her arms around the back of his neck in what might have been an attempt to comfort him.

"Walter… you know why you disappeared, don't you?" she asked, leaning her forehead against his. "Why haven't you told us yet?"

"I did what I did, because I didn't want any of you to experience what the future might have been like for all of us… It's for the best if you didn't know."

"And you want to carry the burden of knowing what happened by yourself?"

"No… B-But I feel that it's for the best if _they_ didn't know…"

"Olivia and Peter?"

Walter nodded in response, feeling Astrid's fingers caressing his face once again. "Care to tell me who you were talking to?"

"Carla…"

"Your old assistant?"

"Mhmm."

"What did she want you to find?"

Walter was hesitant with his answer, but he decided to comply and get up from his bed and pointed down at the floor where there was a hole in one of the tiles.

"There's a book full of my old notes hidden in there… on how I crossed over… My hubris is confined in the pages in that book and I can't bring myself to look at them… Even though I looked through those notes in the future, Astrid. I remember what I have written on those pages and I shouldn't…"

"I'm not sure that I understand…" Astrid said, pushing herself up off of the bed to come stand next to him, taking his hand into her own two hands as she approached.

"The man that I was before, he's somewhere inside of me… and the thought of him taking control someday…"

"I'm not going to let that happen to you, Walter." She said, leading him back over to his bed. "I think that I'll stay in here with you… I can't really sleep either."

He nodded and got back in bed and laid his head against his pillow, and she covered him up before joining him on the other side. Astrid rested her head against his shoulder just as she had the night before, draping her arm over his chest and he in return wrapped an arm around her middle. "I'm here to listen to _anything_ that you need to tell me, but when you're ready… I'm not going to force you to, okay?"

Walter just gave her another nod, still feeling shaken up from the whole experience from his dream, but it was all that he could offer to her for the time being. Carla had been right of course, or now that he was awake and could distinguish that they were actually his own thoughts, _he_ had been right. He had always cared for Astrid in his own way, but he never wanted to recognize it because he had always been afraid that he would lose her or push her away just as he had everyone else that he had ever cared for.

After about an hour, the two were finally able to drift off into a peaceful slumber and slept through the night.


	7. Anger Management

**Chapter 7:** Anger Management

" _Rage is exciting, but leaves me confused and exhausted."_ – _ **Mason Cooley**_

Olivia sat on her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them, staring at the tattered journal that was lying on the bedside table next to the bed. There was something ominous about the book that she couldn't explain, like some kind of dark energy was looming all around it, daring her to read on. Her curiosity was drawing her closer to it, but her instincts told her to stay away from it. Part of her wanted nothing more than to take the book outside and burn it, but would that help? Would the ghost simply just disappear or would it rid them of some of the _only_ answers that they so desperately needed to solve this case? Had the ghost actually killed Astrid's father? Or had it been a coincidence of some kind? There was an abundance of questions that were currently buzzing around on the inside of her head and there seemed to be no logical answers to be made from any of them. Even Walter seemed to have little to no clue as to what was going on, which was extremely rare and it just made everything seem less reassuring to her.

When the whole Fringe team was together, at least one of them had some kind of clue to go on, or some evidence or a lead of some kind, and normally she would find some comfort in that, knowing that they would eventually find something else to go on, but how could they bring a ghost to justice? Shaking her head, she felt herself starting to tense up at the thought. Everything until now could be explained by science or numbers, but _this_ , this was the unknown, leaving her to feel as though she were staring into the dark abyss.

Mustering up some of her courage, Olivia reached out and took hold of the dusty bindings of the journal and pulled it over to her and crossed her legs beneath the covers to set the book on her lap. She opened up the book and began flipping through the crinkled and yellowing pages on the inside, looking for the place where she had left off. It didn't take her very long to find the place that she had left off, but these words were scrawled on the pages in red, and if she didn't know that it was ink, Olivia would've thought that it was blood. Or was that the idea of the change in color? Was the author trying to give the illusion of blood? Or perhaps anger and rage?

Reading carefully over each of neatly hand written words, she soon got her answer. Lydia had written in her journal that Robert seemed to be having mood swings, and most of the time without warning or reason. The staff at the asylum had to subdue him on several occasions and tie him to his bed in order to keep him from hurting anyone, including Lydia. She wrote that he would hit her and scream at her and she felt as though she were undeserving and didn't understand why he would become so angry and violent towards her. Lydia had started to lose faith in him, her love, and was starting to grow increasingly worried that he might attempt to do something more to her than he already had. The staff of the hospital thought that he had grown to be unruly and was unsure of what to do with him, so they decided that they were going to send him a way to a place that actually could accommodate him.

The rest of the journal remained empty, but Olivia knew that there was so much more to the story that needed to be told. From the records that they had managed to get their hands on, Olivia knew that Lydia had been killed by one of the patients in the hospital, but the account didn't list the name of the man who killed her. Olivia could only assume that it had been Robert that killed her, but why? Was it a mental illness of some kind that had crept upon him too fast? Had he always been like that? Or had it been something else entirely? By the way that Lydia had spoken of him in the earlier entries of her journal; he seemed to be a kindly gentleman that wouldn't hurt anyone, but the Robert in the later entries didn't seem to be the same man that Lydia had fallen in love with, he just became a complete stranger to her. Had he been the one to kill her before they sent him away? It was a strange way of saying; _I love you,_ to someone, regardless.

Olivia had been so lost in her own thoughts as she flipped through the pages of the journal again and again, trying to make some sense out of what had happened that she may not have seen on the first read through, that she almost didn't hear Peter coming into the room talking to their daughter who seemed to be chattering away about a story that her daddy had read to her. "What story are you reading mommy?" Etta asked, as she hopped up on the mattress and climbed over to her rightful place in the middle of the bed.

The room went silent for a moment as Olivia tried to come up with a satisfactory answer for the eager young child, but she was unsure of just how she could phrase it to appease their intelligent four year old.

"It's a love story." Olivia replied after a moment, giving Etta a halfhearted smile, which caused Etta to scrunch up her little nose.

"That sounds boring." The little girl giggled and turned towards her daddy as he climbed up on the bed behind her.

"Oh it sounds boring to you now kiddo, but someday you'll change your mind about that." he gave her a wink and started tickling her tummy causing her to laugh even more and Olivia gave him a smile, thankful for the momentary diversion.

"Stop that." the little girl managed to get out through all of her laughter as she tried to push Peter's hands away, giving Olivia an opportunity to stash the journal into one of the drawers in the table beside of the bed. _Out of sight, out of mind._ She didn't want her daughter to know more about what was going on than she already had to experience, even though it was most likely inevitable.

"Alright, if you find my story is so boring, would you mind telling me what the two of you read tonight?" Olivia asked in a genuine humorous tone. The sight and sound of her child laughing was a heavenly noise to her ears and it was almost instantly able to lighten her mood after having read the darker thoughts that were recorded in Lydia's journal, causing her to momentarily forget about it.

"Oh it was Green Eggs and Ham tonight." Peter said as he pulled the covers over their legs and laid down, facing Etta and Olivia. "I wouldn't be surprised if she asked you to fix some of those tomorrow for breakfast."

"Yeah!" Etta called out in agreement. "Can you make me some, mommy?"

"Well, I'm not really sure how, but we're going to take you to see your grandfather in the morning; perhaps he will know how to do it."

Etta nodded her head in satisfaction, causing her curly locks of hair to fall into her eyes and Olivia reached out to push it back out of her eyes. "There, that's better." She said as she leaned over to kiss her on her forehead. "I love you." A proud smile beamed on her face.

"I love you too, mom!"

"Hey! What about me?" Peter teased.

"I love you to, daddy."

* * *

"Olivia, I'm not going to ask you again! Where is that damn journal? We have to take it back to that asylum or Lydia will keep coming after us. What if something happens to Etta? Are you just going to sit by and let that happen? Lydia has already tried to attack her once." Peter was nearly screaming at Olivia, who had taken Etta outside to get into their car just as soon as she took notice that there was something that was not quite right about the way that Peter had been acting.

"No Peter. How do you even know that will help our situation? Why are you so angry all of the sudden?"

"Angry? I'm not angry. I'm _fine_." He nearly spat.

"No, Peter, you're not." Olivia said rather sternly, glancing out the window to see that Etta was watching them through the window of the car. "Etta is waiting on us."

"We're not going anywhere until you tell me where the journal is." He pointed at her as he spoke through his current state of irrational anger. Truthfully, Olivia had already snuck the journal outside and put it into the car along with Etta, knowing that Peter would most likely destroy it if he somehow got his hands on it in this state of mind.

"Fine. You know what? You win." Olivia said, holding her hands up in feigned defeat. "But would you be willing to let Walter take a closer look at it before we take it back? Maybe we will be able to find some more answers before we lose it."

It was becoming clearer _now_ more than ever. The journal had nearly predicted that Astrid's father would die of a heart attack, and now there was a parallel between what happened to Robert and what was currently happening to Peter. It couldn't be a coincidence, could it? What if she was somehow making all of this happen by simply reading each of the words that had been written there in Lydia's journal? Her thoughts had done some unimaginable things in the past, hadn't they? Was Lydia using her as some kind of power source like William Bell had done once before? Walter was the only one who was capable of giving Olivia the answer to _that_ question and Peter was the one who was currently standing in the way of getting the answer.

Peter stood on the opposite side of the kitchen; his breath was ragged as he continued to stare at her with cold blue eyes, eyes that were unfamiliar to her. This wasn't her Peter; her husband would _never_ behave this way towards her, and even though she was aware of that, his words still penetrated her skin deep enough to feel a twinge of pain.

"My father will probably be too busy with his girlfriend to help you." He finally said, his breath becoming more ragged by the second.

"Peter… what are you talking about?" Olivia asked, reaching up to scratch the back of her head in confusion. "Walter doesn't have a girlfriend… does he?"

"It's Astrid." He huffed, suddenly falling down on his knees, prompting Olivia to run over to his side only to have him immediately push her away from him. _Another twinge of pain._ Shaking it off to the best of her ability, Olivia stood up and took this moment as her only opportunity to walk away from Peter, who was still screaming at her from his knees, and out of the house to join Etta in the car. She hated just leaving him there like that, but she also had their daughter to think about, and Etta didn't need to see her father like this. Olivia felt a strong urge to get their daughter away from him until she could figure out what was wrong with Peter, and after knowing what happened to Robert and how he acted right before he murdered Lydia, she wasn't about to take any chances.

* * *

Olivia sat at one of the tables in the lab, watching quietly as Walter played with Etta on the other side of the room. Olivia would be the first to admit that Walter was good with children, and he would often go out of his way to keep from saying more than he should around them, even when he was normally blunter around everyone else.

"You haven't heard back from Nina yet, have you?" Astrid asked, placing a plate of what looked to be green eggs down in front of Olivia. "The ham will be done just in a minute."

Olivia solemnly shook her head 'no' in response.

When she first arrived at the lab, Olivia immediately walked out into the hall to call the new head of the Fringe division to give a full report of exactly what had happened, out of earshot of Etta, and he told her that he would send a team to their home straight away, but when they had arrived there, Peter was nowhere to be found. Nina had immediately been called in to help them in their search for Peter, and she did so without hesitation.

"How are you holding up?" Olivia asked, folding her hands together on the table.

Astrid frowned and sat down across from her at the table. "I think that I'm still in shock of what happened…" she admitted. "I just wished that I was there that night… maybe I could've gotten him to the hospital faster and he would've been okay…"

Olivia nodded in understanding, although she was starting to become very doubtful about that at the moment, but she was still unsure if she should actually tell her all about what was going on. Astrid knew some of it of course, but she had yet to tell her everything in an attempt to protect her while she could. "So is it true? About you and Walter?" Olivia asked, biting on her lower lip. "Peter just seemed out of it this morning… and I didn't know if it was true or not."

"Oh…" Astrid gave Olivia a slight nod as she crossed her arms together in front of her.

"Isn't it kind of odd? Uh… _well_ you know… he's Walter."

"Olivia, I have seen many strange things since I have started working here, and he's not one of them… and if you're referring to our difference in age—"

"No… no. I just wondered… why now? After all of these years that you two have been working together… well I'm actually just a little surprised that this didn't happen sooner."

Astrid's expression clearly told Olivia that she was a little perplexed by her statement, but after a moment she gave her a nod. "Well, I think that we have always been close… but I don't think that I realized just how much, not until…"

Olivia nodded. "I did notice that you and Walter seemed to be a little different around one another lately… when did this happen?"

"Only just yesterday…" she answered rather shyly as the timer went off somewhere in the background. "I think that I should get that, excuse me."

Astrid brought the ham out of the oven and sat it on another table on the other side of the room and began carving into it, cutting it into thin slices so that everyone could have a slice or two and Olivia watched as her daughter excitedly jumped up from where she had been playing with Walter and ran over to Astrid's side to watch.

"Astrid, could you and Walter watch Etta for a little while. I think that I'm going to have a look around myself." It wasn't like her to sit around and let other people do all the work. She needed to be out there looking for _her_ husband along with the rest of them. Astrid looked hesitant for a moment, but gave her a nod in response, knowing that trying to stop the blonde was a bit like trying to stop a moving train when she had her mind made up. "Thank you." She said, turning to leave out the door.


	8. Real Is Just A Matter Of Perception

**Chapter 8:** Real is Just a Matter of Perception

" _My mom was telling me you got to imagine how you want things to be. And then you can try and change them."_ _**– Young Peter**_

Olivia tightly gripped the stirring wheel as she turned her head from side-to-side in search of her husband who had gone MIA earlier that morning. She kept frantically searching her memory for anything that may give her a clue as to where he might turn up, but she kept drawing a blank. He was after the journal for some reason or another, so he would have to be out there looking for her, right? Part of her had been worried that he might try to slip through to the lab, thinking that she might have gone there with journal as she had informed him that she would be doing only earlier that morning, so she had asked ahead of time if the Fringe division could send some people over to stand guard until he had been captured and subdued, just until they could figure out what was going on.

She had yet to tell Walter that his son had been possessed by Robert, or whatever the hell was going on at the moment, knowing that Walter could never really focus well under pressure, _especially_ when it came to his son. Olivia had managed to pull Astrid to the side after she brought Etta in and informed her that there was _something_ wrong with Peter, but she had left the part about possession out of their conversation in fear that it might have added on some extra weight.

Olivia had always been someone who would protect other people from things that she felt that she could handle on her own, but was she in over her head here? Should she have told them everything? She shook her head 'no' just as soon as the thought crossed her mind. Astrid was dealing with more than enough at the moment and there was no way that she needed something else to add onto her already heave stress load.

There was something oddly peculiar about the timing though, wasn't there? Both events had happened right after she read about it, after she _knew_ about it, was she doing this to them? Was she somehow projecting what she had read in Lydia's journal onto the people around her? Or was Lydia only using her to do all of this to them and was using her journal as some kind of proxy? The very thought of it sent a shiver down her spine, giving her that same unclean feeling that she had had earlier, right after Lydia had somehow used her body to retrieve the journal from behind the bookshelf.

Whatever was going on, she didn't like it.

She knew that she should be back at the lab getting tested along with the journal, but the thought of Peter being in a fit of rage wouldn't allow her to just sit still, not while he was still in danger. What if he got himself hurt? Olivia needed to keep moving, she needed some peace of mind so she could continue moving forward with this mission.

* * *

"Walter, I need to step out for a minute to make some arrangements for my father…" Astrid said as she placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, her voice clearly burdened by the stress of the mere thought of going there and taking care of everything by herself. "Do you think that you will be alright staying here by yourself with Etta for about an hour? I just put her down for a nap; she might be in there for quite a while."

Walter couldn't help but frown as his gaze left the journal and met Astrid's gaze. "Of course, I don't mind." His voice was gentle as he took her hand from his shoulder and held it between his own two hands. "Are you sure that you don't want the two of us to come with you?" He hated that she had to take care of this on her own, and he hated to see her sad and upset, knowing that there was nothing that he could do to make her feel any better.

"I will be just fine. I promise." She replied, giving Walter her best reassuring smile that she could muster under the present circumstances and reached out with her free hand to place it on his cheek. Her thumb caressed his cheek for a brief moment before he gave her a nod in understanding. He had work that he needed to be doing himself, and he knew it, but when he saw the pain in her eyes, Walter found it even harder to comply.

"Okay." He muttered unhappily. "We will be just fine here, until you return. I have some work that I need to get to while Etta is sleeping."

"And you're sure about that?"

"Astrid, I am not a child." His voice sounded angry and stubborn as each of the words left his lips, and he almost instantly realized what he had done. "I'm sorry…" he apologized, knowing that Astrid had only meant the best for him and Etta, as he didn't exactly have the best track record of taking care of himself.

"I know that you're not a child, Walter." She leaned over to gently place her lips on his forehead. "I will be back just as soon as I can. I promise."

"Alright." He replied and gave her a firm nod. "I suppose that I will be getting to my homework while you're gone." He gave a sideways glance to the journal and then back up to Astrid who was already leaning in to give him a kiss him goodbye.

Walter watched his dark haired assistant in silence as she moved about his lab collecting some of her belongings before she left the lab, wishing that there was more that he could do to comfort her. A huge wave of helplessness suddenly drifted over him as his gaze fell back to the journal on the black lab table, it had become an increasingly familiar feeling that he had come to hate more and more over the years, but there was nothing more that he could do for now, or was there? Olivia had said that the journal had somehow predicted that Astrid's father would die of a heart attack, so what else was there to be found in Lydia's journal? Perhaps all of the answers were there inside of the tattered and dirty bindings of the journal, and now all that he had to do was to find them.

* * *

"Grandpa, why are you reading mommy's book?" Etta's small voice suddenly rang out across the lab, completely shattering the still silence, causing Walter to jump. Walter's head shot straight up and looked over to the young girl who was trying to rub the sleep from her eyes with one hand and had her other small hand resting on one of the guard rails as she prepared herself to walk down the steps to join him on the floor of the lab.

"Oh, your mother let me borrow it." Walter replied with a smile. "She wanted me to take a look at it for her."

"Mom said that it was a love story." She said as she pulled back a seat to join him at his table.

"It is, in a way, I suppose."

"It's not a love story?"

"No, it is, it's just… sometimes things don't always turn out the way that we plan for them to turn out." Walter replied as he leaned back in his seat to get a better look at her.

"Have you ever been in love?"

Walter was nearly stunned into silence, unsure of how to answer his granddaughter's question. Of course he had been in love before, but how could he explain to a four year old that her grandmother had committed suicide after his son had died, or after he was put into an asylum, depending on the universe that they were talking about. Nevertheless, he didn't want to tell her about what had happened to Elizabeth. What had happened to her had been all his fault and his fault alone. He had burdened her with so many things and yet he had never been there to help alleviate any of it, or to help give her strength when she needed him the most. His hubris had gotten in the way of that, like most things, and pushed everyone that he had cared for away from him and he never wanted to make that mistake again.

"Yes, yes I have."

"With who?"

"Your grandmother."

"What was her name?"

"Elizabeth."

Etta nodded her head and went silent for a few moments as her own gaze fell to the journal, a thoughtful look formed on the youngster's face as she processed the new information that he had given to her. Walter already knew of his granddaughter's brilliance and he already had a glimpse of who she would be someday, but with the Observers out of the way, how different would she be? A small smile formed on his own features as the thought only briefly crossed his mind. He had gone through the wormhole for Etta, to give her back to her parents, and to give her a new life where she didn't have to live every day in fear of the threat that had continuously loomed overhead. She wouldn't have to grow up, numbed by everything that was going on around her and he knew from sitting there looking at her now, that all of it had been entirely worth it.

"Where did she go?" she finally asked, looking up at her grandfather with her big blue eyes.

"She, uh… she passed away before you were born." Walter stammered uncomfortably, as he nervously began wringing his hands together beneath the table.

"Like Mr. Farnsworth?" Etta's voice was starting to tremble now and he instantly wished that he hadn't opened his mouth.

"Sort of…"

"Is Aunt Astrid going to be my new grandmother?"

"What makes you ask that?"

The four year old shrugged her shoulders in response. "You are with her all of the time, like mommy and daddy are…"

"That doesn't mean-"

"And she kissed you before she left." She insisted holding an accusing finger in his direction, almost daring him to try and deny it to her. What had he expected? She was Peter and Olivia's daughter after all, and that was a deadly combination. It was now clearly obvious to him that she hadn't been sleeping the entire time that she had been in his office; she had been watching them through the blinds, or at least for a while. Etta must've taken his silence on the matter as a conformation of some kind because she continued on with her barrage of questions. "Do you love her?"

"Why are you asking me all of these questions, dear? What's on your mind?"

"Well… I heard daddy yelling at mommy earlier… and she took me out to the car. He was supposed to come with us but he seemed really angry." She wrung her tiny hands together on the table as she spoke.

"Really?" Walter knew that it wasn't like Peter to yell at Olivia over just anything, especially in front of Etta. "What for?"

Etta's eyes landed on the journal that still laid there open on the table. "That book…" she said solemnly. "Daddy wanted her to take it back to where they found it, but mommy didn't want too… is there something wrong with it?"

"I-I don't know. B-But your mother asked me to take a look at it to see if I could find anything that she may have looked over."

"Have you found anything?"

"Not yet." He replied giving the young girl a frown as he suddenly pieced together what was currently going on now and what Olivia was out there doing. Olivia was Lydia, the author of the journal, and Peter had taken the part of Robert, her lover. But how and why was all of this happening? His eyes fell to the journal once more and flipped through the empty pages until it abruptly stopped and he opened it a little further to discover that some of the pages had been torn out of it. "Oh my…" he uttered out loud, it had to be something that someone didn't want anyone else to see. But what was it and how could the story somehow project itself on other people? "Etta, would you like to help me dear?"

"Yeah." She replied, perking up a bit.

"Do you see the device over there on the table? It is round… and it's on a stick." She nodded her head. "Could you get that for me and bring it over here? Oh, and do be careful with it."

Without questioning why, Etta hopped up out of her seat and collected the device in her tiny hands and brought it over to him and sat it down on the table.

"Thanks, dear. Now would you like to learn how to use it?"

She nodded her head, starting to look excited about the prospect of learning how to use a new gadget, or what was more than likely seen as a toy to Etta, or perhaps she was even just excited to have a chance to help him out in the lab, or to emulate him. "What is it?"

"It is a Gauss Meter."

"What does it do?"

"It reads electromagnetic energy… I-It helps you find a power source." He explained, knowing that the four year old probably wouldn't fully understand what he had meant, but it seemed to satisfy her curiosity just the same. "Push this button here…" he said as he stood up and pointed over to one of the buttons on the device, and she did as he had asked. "Okay, now _slowly_ wave it over the book, as if it were a wand."

"Okay!" Etta nodded and did as she was asked to and held it over the book and gently began waving it back and almost immediately, it picked up a spike of energy. "Did it find something?"

"It did. Good job Etta!" Walter exclaimed as he gently patted the young girl on the shoulder and then immediately fished his cellphone out of his pocket and dialed Olivia's number. "Olivia… no, I haven't heard anything about Peter, but I think that I might have found something else… I theorize that Lydia may be using the unique neuropathways in _your_ brain that the cortexiphan created… you need to get back here so I can run some tests, just to be sure."

* * *

 **A/N:** I hope that this chapter made some sense, as I am running on hardly any sleep at the moment, so I'm sure that there are some mistakes here and there, but I wanted to get this chapter typed while I still had it on my mind/before I forgot something.

Thank you for reading and keeping up with this story. Reviews would be appreciated, but seeing that some of you are still interested in reading it means a whole lot too. The end to this story is within sight now, and I hope that you're starting to see where I'm going with this too.


	9. Of Magnets and Neuropathways

**A/N:** I am sorry for the _extremely_ late update on this story. I have had a lot going on lately and I haven't had the time to update it as often as I would like. As a result, please forgive any errors that I have made in this chapter, but I didn't want you guys to have to wait any longer.

 **Chapter 9:** Of Magnets and Neuropathways

Walter continued to look over the journal as he waited for Olivia's arrival. Etta had long grown bored with all of the experiments that he had been conducting on the book in question, and took to watching some cartoons on his television set back in his office in the back of the lab. Walter only hoped that she wouldn't stray too awfully far from his bed to inspect the other aspects around his room, not that he had anything dangerous in there now that they had cleaned out his entire lab when they thought that he had passed away.

The sound of the door opening in the background momentarily drew his focus away from what he was doing, but he assumed that it must have been Olivia; after all she was the only person that he had been expecting to show up. "Hop up on the chair dear, just over there; I already have everything set up for you." Walter said, not looking away from the journal. "I'll be with you in just a moment."

"I don't know who you were expecting to come through that door, Walter, but I can guarantee you that I am not that person." A raspy voice responded to his calling, startling Walter and causing him to nearly jump out of his seat to look over at the intruder as if he were looking at a ghost. "You look surprised to see me, my old friend."

"W-What are you doing here?" Walter stuttered, backing as far away as he possibly could in his seat, from the man that he had once called his best friend.

"Nina told me that you had asked to see my notes on my soul magnets." William held up a thick folder and shook it for Walter to see. "I volunteered to bring them to you myself."

"No… no. I don't want any help from you. You should be locked away for what you did."

"What I almost did." He sternly warned with a finger pointing at him. "Who would it benefit to lock an old man away anyways? One that might only have a few months left to live? I can still do a lot of good Walter, but more on the outside of those prison walls, than on the inside of them. It's not like they could hold me in there anyways. Trust me when I say this, I would find a way to escape." He said with a smile and a light shrug before he extended his arm for Walter to take the folder from his hand. "Here, take it. I don't know what you might be needing those note for, but you must have really needed them if you asked for my help, Walter."

Walter eyed the folder for a moment, thinking about turning the offer down without a second thought. He needed William's help, certainly, but he both wanted and needed his knowledge without him being actually being involved or knowing about the case. Or the fact that he hadn't been smart enough to figure this out on his own. Why had he continued to trust Nina? She was in love with this egotistical man and would continue to follow him until the bitter end, no matter what it was that he had done.

"Come now Walter, don't be like that." he continued upon seeing Walter's hesitation to take his offer and dropped the folder down on the table by Walter's hand. "I know that you disappeared for quite some time, not long ago. Nina probably hasn't had the opportunity to tell you this yet, but I was the one who led the search to find you. Would you believe that?"

"Why? Why would you do that?" he asked, knowing now that the _only_ reason that William Bell _ever_ did anything to help someone else, it was usually had to be beneficiary to William Bell. The man was as self-serving as he ever was, or so he thought.

"That-that does not matter. I assure you." William took a seat next to Walter and seemingly made himself at home without asking for permission.

"So, I'm still a pawn in your game." Walter furrowed his brow as he jumped out of his seat in an attempt to push himself further away from William Bell. "You must still have some use for me if you needed me enough to go looking for me."

William sighed and shook his head from side-to-side in what could only be described as disappointment in his friend. The older man sitting there before him looked to be more tired and more feeble than Walter could ever recall him looking before, knowing that his cancer must be starting to take its toll on him. "Oh Walter, can't this just be about me worrying about an old friend?"

Walter shook his head 'no' feeling a little too stunned to say much else. "William, you tried to _destroy_ both universes… You tried to play God. What my assistant said to me many years ago, she was right, some things are not ours to tamper with… s-some things are God's."

"Walter, there is no God. We are the only creators that there are." He held up his hands. "I didn't come here to argue with you, Walter. I just wanted to see you again… before something happened to me. My cancer is getting worse and I'm not sure how much longer that I will be around to see you." He nodded towards the notes on the magnets. "I wanted to do one good thing at least. Why did you need my notes? Perhaps I can be of some assistance here."

Side glancing at the notes that were callously laid there on the desk, Walter retook his seat and placed his hand on the folder and stared at them for a moment as his mind drifted off in thought. Should he trust William with what was going on, and tell him what was happening with Olivia? Or should he keep it a secret? Could William be of some help to him in some way? William had to know more on this subject than anyone else, because no one was more obsessed with conquering death than he was.

Biting his lower lip, Walter turned his head back to William and gave him a slight nod, signaling to him that he would trust him here; after all, what could it hurt? "I-I am not sure. What has been going on is unexplainable, even to me. We went into this abandoned Asylum, to inspect a weak spot, and we found a journal there. I have read this book and I have found that everything in this book is happening to us now." Walter gently patted the book as he spoke. "The book, I have found, has been giving off an unusual energy reading, and I have come to suspect that this book is the cause of all of this."

"And what does that have to do with the magnets?" Bell curiously asked, placing an elbow on the desk and leaned his head against his hand.

"I hypothesis that this _energy_ is somehow using Olivia to manifest itself in this plane of existence." Walter made a gesture to demonstrate as he spoke.

"And you think that the magnets have something to do with this why, Walter?"

Walter squinted at the man in confusion, hadn't he been the one who had put some of those magnets into Olivia's tea? No, that was in another time line, he quickly reminded himself, otherwise he wouldn't be there right now. "You put some of those magnets into Olivia's tea when you pulled her over to the other side, you knew that if anything should happen to you, you would have another means to live and conquer death."

"I don't know how you knew that…" Walter could tell that he had somehow managed to shock William, which caused a proud smile to appear across his face.

"It was in another time line." Walter stated, his voice apathetic and cold towards the man, perhaps even a little angrier with him now than he had been before he had remembered that particular fact about the him.

William's head hung low now with his jaw clenched. "So that's where you were?" he suddenly asked. "In another time line?"

"You could say that, yes, I suppose." Walter leaned back in his seat, feeling a little more relaxed now that he had the upper hand in their conversation and he wouldn't let William by with any of it. It was only part of the whole truth of course, but he hadn't told anyone else about the full extent of what had happened and he wasn't about to tell the likes of William Bell.

"Walter, I don't even know if the magnets will work. I just wanted to try them out in the off chance that they would. Did you just want me to die if I had a chance to live outside of this body? It's dying Walter."

"They work. But we're all dying, William. But you had _**no**_ right to do what you did to her without her knowledge of it, and what you have done has already costed the life of Astrid's father." Walter was becoming even more infuriated with the man with each and every passing second. "And Peter, God knows where he could be right now."

"That's not fair. I had no way of knowing that any of this would happen."

"No, you wouldn't. Because you only know how to think of yourself and what else you can accomplish to add onto the long list of achievements of William Bell."

"Isn't this what you would call the pot calling the kettle black?" William huffed as he straightened himself up in his seat. "You always did things without thinking of the consequences later." William let out yet another long sigh. "Walter, this isn't getting either of us anywhere. Please continue on with your hypothesis…"

Walter looked uncertain for a moment, but gave him a nod, knowing what he was saying was to be true, but he had had so much pent up anger towards the man that it was becoming extremely hard for him to control it. "Fine, have it your way… I think that the unique combination of the soul magnets and Olivia's neuropathways created by the cortexiphan is being used by this… entity in order to project itself onto other people around her."

"She is the controller…" Bell said thoughtfully to himself, taking everything that Walter had said to him in and taking a moment for himself to fully process everything. "Olivia can control other people with her own powers and you're saying that this… _residual_ energy is somehow attracted to my soul magnets and it is now using Olivia's unique abilities to manifest itself, or to project itself, onto other people?" he nodded to himself, impressed with what Walter had been able to come up with yet again. "You never cease to amaze me, Walter. That's brilliant."

"So you think that it's possible?"

"Of course it is. Almost anything is possible; you have said it yourself many many times before now. I see no reason for you to start doubting yourself now." He replied with a smirk. "Residual energies are always trapped in a loop, doomed to repeat itself… so in theory, if things really are as you say they are, and all of events written in the journal is starting to unfold here, then it is safe to say that you're right about what you're dealing with here."

"Can you think of a way that we might be able to stop all of this?" Walter asked, starting to feel a little weak.

William went silent for a moment, almost hesitant to say anything out of fear of what might happen next. "Yes…" he suddenly admitted with a nod. "I would have to demagnetize my soul magnets inside of Olivia… and that could be a little painful for her."

"FREEZE!" a gun clicked off to the side of the lab, causing both of their heads to turn towards the direction of the doorway this time, only to see Olivia standing there with her gun trained on William Bell. "You better not move you son of a bitch. Or I swear that will shoot you…"


	10. The Missing Pages

**A/N:** I'm sorry for being slow with getting this chapter up, there has been a lot going on for me lately and there are no signs of it slowing down for the time being. But thank you for being patient and for all of the nice reviews. I really do appreciate all of them. Also, I already had most of this chapter wrote up, but then I decided to go a different way with it and I ended up rewriting it. There were many ways this chapter could have gone, but I think that I finally settled on the right one.

 **Chapter 10:** The Missing Pages

" _The real duty of man is not to extend his power or multiply his wealth beyond his needs, but to enrich and enjoy his imperishable possession: his soul."_ _ **Gilbert Highet**_

Olivia stood there at the door, pistol drawn and trained on William Bell's forehead and had no intentions of moving from her spot on the floor. Her gaze was bearing down on the man, just daring him to move to give her a reason to pull the trigger. She wouldn't hesitate to shoot him, not this time, not after what he had done and what he was fully capable of doing once again if he wanted. She felt her heart thumping away in her chest from the adrenaline that was coursing through her veins, but she didn't dare give him the satisfaction of knowing that she was nervous at the mere sight of him, furious even, at the thought of being his pawn again. Somehow she had managed to stand there as if she were a statue, despite the internal conflict that was raging on the inside of her, begging her to pull the trigger so she could end all of this now. She couldn't do it, it wasn't right, but she wanted him to believe that she would if he so much as flinched.

"Come now, Olivia. Don't you think that we can talk all of this over?" he asked with his hands raised in the air to show her that he had nothing on him that would harm her or anyone else in the lab. "I know what's going on with Peter, and with you, and I know just the thing to cure it. But if you shoot me, you will never know the answer and he will be lost to you." The word 'cure' had immediately caught her attention, but she didn't dare move or take her eyes off of him. What if all of this was a trick? Should she risk it and take a glance at Walter as if he could pass her some kind of silent message on what she should do here? His emotions were always easy for her to read, all it would take is a second… no, she couldn't do that; she wouldn't allow herself to, so instead she deflected the question with one of her own.

"What did you do to the security guards that were outside of this door?" she asked ignoring what he had said, not wanting to let him get inside of her head so easily, she couldn't trust anything that he said or anything that he did, so why would she trust him about this supposed cure of his?

William took as deep of a breath as he could manage under the circumstances and let out another sigh. The older man was looking his age and the air about him suggested that he was growing older and more and more fatigued by the situation. "Relax, they're only sleeping…" he muttered, starting to sound even more wearier by the second. "They should be waking up very soon and by that time, they will send in a report to the Fringe Division, that they saw William Bell going inside of this room and then I am not so sure that they would allow me anywhere near you to help you after that. I can almost hear the sound of their boots on the ground to come and take me away already."

"O-Olivia, listen to Belly… it's his soul magnets that are inside of you that's causing all of this." Walter cut in, almost meekly, in fear of what might transpire in the lab. It was an infinitely delicate situation no doubt, but she wanted to do what needed to be done. She dared for a moment to take a glance at Walter, who seemed to be distracted by something that was off to the side and was looking in another direction that her eyes couldn't help but follow and she immediately saw what he was looking at. Olivia slowly lowered her gun, seeing her four year old watching the scene unfold in front of her from the door of Walter's office. "She was supposed to be sleeping…" he wrung his hands together as he nervously looked back at Olivia who had turned white upon realizing what she almost did in front of her daughter. "But she just doesn't seem to want too…"

"Is that your granddaughter, Walter? She looks just like you, Olivia. The resemblance is uncanny." William Bell smiled, thankful for the momentary distraction.

"You better stay away from her." Olivia demanded as she swiftly brought her weapon back up and trained her weapon on the elder man once again.

"Or you'll do what?" he asked. "Put the weapon away, Olivia, so I can help you."

"How do I know that I can trust you?"

"You can't. But I'm the only you can trust, because I am the only one who knows how my soul magnets inside of you work. I'm the one who invented them after all."

Hesitantly, Olivia lowered her weapon and slipped her gun back into its holster but didn't fasten it in, just in case she needed it at a moments notice to protect her daughter from who she had grown to see as a monster. "Fine. What do you need me to do?"

"First I'll need a blood sample."

* * *

Astrid walked back to her car after making the final arrangements for her father's funeral, feeling a weight tugging at her shoulders that caused her to slump forward as she checked her phone for any messages that she might have missed while she was inside. The Fringe Division had given her some time off, they practically all but forced her to, to allow her some time recover from everything and so she could get back onto her feet again, although she didn't really intend on taking any time off at all, but she also didn't expect to hear anything from them either. _Work is good for the soul;_ she could almost hear Walter gently whispering the phrase in her ear that she had heard him say so many times before as if it were being carried to her ears by the gentle breeze that was drifting through the area. She wanted to be back in the lab, in his gentle embrace that made her feel like she was at home, like she was both safe and needed somewhere, it kept her distracted from everything else that was going on around them.

Scrolling through some of the spam messages that she received, she noticed a text from Peter, asking her if she would come to pick him up miles from where she was standing and without hesitation she sent a text back to him to tell him that she would be right there to pick him up before hopping into her car with dozens of questions popping up in her head about why he had asked her to come and get him and not Olivia.

Upon arrival, Astrid pulled over next to the sidewalk and began looking around for Peter, but he was nowhere to be found. _Odd,_ she thought as she glanced around the area trying to find the brunette walking around among the other people who were all going about their daily business and pulled her cellphone out again only to find yet another message from Peter, telling her to 'take a seat'. Astrid furrowed her brow as she read over the strange message again and again. Why would he tell her to take a seat? What seat? Wasn't he supposed to be the one who was waiting on her? Shaking her head, her eyes caught sight of the only seat in the area, a bench, and she wandered over to it and immediately noticed a rock on top of a stack of yellowing pages that looked as though they could have been torn out of an old journal. Curiosity got the best of her as she drew nearer to the bench, eager to see what he had left for her to find and why. Reaching out, Astrid took the rock in hand and sat it to the side and picked the pages up and quickly began to scan over them, a look of horror spreading across her face upon realizing what she was holding.

Astrid pulled her cellphone out once again and quickly found Olivia's number and waited for her to pick up on the other end.

"Olivia, you won't believe what I just found."

"What?!" she asked, her voice sounded irritated, but Astrid knew not to take it personally.

"It's pages from the diary, I think that Peter left them here for me to find… but the handwriting on these pages looks different from the others. It was most likely written by someone else."

"What do they say?" Olivia's tone had changed almost immediately on the other side, as if she were hanging off of her every word.

"It seems that Lydia and Robert's relationship was a little more intimate… Lydia was pregnant and wanted to tell the doctors at the asylum so she could have an abortion and that's why Robert was angry with her. He claimed that she was going to kill their child and that Lydia was the crazy one because she didn't care about what he wanted. This must be why the pages were torn out. She wanted Robert to be taken away so she could have what she wanted."

"And Peter?"

"I never saw him, he just sent me a text message to come and pick him up, but he wasn't here when I got here."

"Where are you? I'm coming. I need to find him."

* * *

"So Walter, now that we're alone again." William said as he peered through the lens of a microscope. Olivia had decided to take Etta to a babysitter and had arranged for a couple of guards to watch over the babysitter's home until she returned without their knowledge of setting all of it up, before heading off to inspect the area that Peter had last been in for any clues as to where he might have been. "This isn't the only journal that we need to talk about."

"What?" Another journal? Surely he couldn't have meant the notebook that he had hidden beneath a tile in his room. He knew that he shouldn't have left it there after he had the dream about it the other night because he knew that he would eventually fall to temptation and look at it again. But that very same temptation was the very thing that had prompted him to keep it there to begin with.

"You have one; or rather you had one that you kept all of your secrets in too." William mused as he adjusted the scope to get a better look at the microscopic magnets underneath the scope. "I couldn't help but take a peek at it once before, while you were out of your office. Surely, you must have gotten curious about some of your old ideas after our last meeting. All of what I did, it was your idea and you must have some clarity about what I said to you by now."

"They were just ideas, Belly. And ideas don't matter unless you find a way to implement them. I never acted on them. That was you."

"No, but you could have if you truly wanted to, and you did, that is why you asked me to cut out the three pieces of your brain." William looked away from the microscope to look at his old friend. "You were always afraid of taking chances Walter, just as you were afraid of your full potential."

"As I told you before, William. Somethings are not ours to mess with and I know that now. I should have listened to Carla when she told me that many years ago. But the lengths that I was willing to go through because of grief frightened me. I had to do something to stop myself."

"Why should we want to hinder our true nature? Our full potential? If there truly is a creator in heaven as you suggest, and he designed us after his own image, does that not make us gods in our own right? Shouldn't He want His creations to excel and fulfill their own destiny? What we were made for? To become like Him? Most of us don't have that kind of ambition-"

Walter shook his head and backed away from him, not wanting to hear any more of what he had to say. William was trying to justify what he had done, just as he had before, but this time he didn't seem as delusional to him as he had once before. The three pieces of his brain that had been cut out was now fully intact and what William was saying was resonating with him and it was becoming harder and harder for him to deny it the longer that he listened to him. Did William somehow know? Was that why he was pushing him to listen to this rubbish now? He felt himself starting to give way to the pressure and felt himself starting to shake as his fear got the better of him.

"You know that I'm right Walter, no matter how many times you try to deny it. But it is one of the many reasons that you agreed to work with me on the Cortexiphan trials. It gave these children all of the abilities that we have denied ourselves of for so long, gifts that were endowed upon us."

"You didn't come down here to help us, did you?" Walter asked, although it was more of a statement than a question. "There's always an ulterior motive with you, isn't there? What did you come here for?"

"I asked you about the journal earlier. You know where it is, don't you?" he smiled and Walter backed away a little further, there was something about his smile that reminded him of something sinister and frightening. Or was it what he was saying that bothered him the most? The truth. Something that he had tried to block out and run away from for so long, but he was starting to realize that no matter where he went or what he did, that part of him would always find a way to follow him. "You don't need the journal anymore, do you Walter? I can see the look in your eye; you're a different man than what you were back there on that boat."

"I'm not helping you with your next plot to destroy the world, Belly. You can leave me out of it." Walter said in a stubborn tone, even angry with him now. "I used to admire your ambitions, but now I can see that nothing can save you from who you truly are. You spent most of your time finding a way to further your name… do you have any idea how much you have hurt Nina? How much you will hurt her? Or do you even care anymore?"

"There's the Walter that I knew."

"You could be there with her right now, spending your last moments with her, but instead you choose to let her suffer because you would choose power over love." His mind was flashing back to William's vault from their time in the future, and the picture of Nina that he had found in there as he spoke. He remembered how hurt Nina was when he told her that William didn't care about her when he now knew that that wasn't so and yet he felt the intense desire to keep pressing that nail down even further, to make it dig deeper, he wanted to see if William actually did care or if he was too far gone to save.

"Walter, what goes on between her and I is none of your business. You best hold your tongue. Why does any of this matter to you?"

"I have found that love is the most powerful force there is out there, William. I suggest you embrace it before it's too late for you. If it's not already."

"Walter…" Astrid gasped as she came through the lab door. "What is William Bell doing here?"

"Don't worry. He was just leaving…" Walter said, continuing to glare at the older man as Astrid came to Walter's side and took him by the arm as William got up to leave.

"I don't doubt that you can figure this out on your own. Now that you're whole again." He smiled and looked at Astrid who only returned the look with a glare. "Goodbye, Walter. I hope our next meeting won't take as long."

"Not in your wildest dreams, Belly." Walter said and Astrid tugged at his arm. The two were silent as they watched him walk through the doors and Walter pulled his arm free from Astrid's grasp and then strode across his lab to his office to retrieve his own journal that was tucked away from view underneath the tile and emerged shortly after.

"Walter, what are you doing?"

"Something I should have done a long time ago, Astrid." He replied as he pulled some lighter fluid off of the shelf. "No one needs to see what's in this journal. Its secrets have to die with me."

"Walter… calm down and _think_ about what you're doing."

"I have, Astrid. This needs to be done."

"Is that why William Bell was here? He wanted your journal?"

"No… He wanted to know if I was the man that I used to be… the one who wrote everything down in there."

"Are you?"

"I don't know anymore." He said as he threw the book into a glass container, the same one that he had once before, and drizzled the lighter fluid on its surface. "Astrid, a match, if you will."

She quickly fished a box of matches out of one of the drawers and handed it to him and he wasted no time lighting it up and dropping it down in the bowl and setting the journal on fire.

"Walter… are you going to be alright… look at me." She said as she grabbed his arm and tried to spin him around, forcing him to. There were tears streaming down his cheek and the sight of him crying tugged at her heart. "As I told you before, Walter, I am not going to let that happen to you again. You don't have to carry this alone anymore. I'm here for you. I'm always here for you… Okay?"

He nodded and she immediately wrapped her arms around him as he continued to let his tears flow down his cheeks, even harder now that he felt comfortable enough to not hold back. Her gentle embrace was all that he ever needed to feel safe, like everything was right where it should. "I love you." He said as he placed an arm around her middle and pulled her a little closer. He wanted to be sure that she knew exactly how he felt about her, especially after his meeting with William Bell, wondering if his old friend had ever told Nina how he felt about her. Did she know? Or had William continued to lead her around after all of these years.

"I love you too, Walter."


	11. Robert

**A/N:** Sorry for the long wait guys, I guess that I lost the motivation to write this story for a little bit, but since some of you seemed to be worried about Peter, I thought that I would give you a chapter about how he ended up going from the kitchen—angry and screaming—to handing Astrid the pages that Robert had written about Lydia.

 **Chapter 11:** Robert

Peter sat on his knees staring at the floor of the kitchen after Olivia had left him there. He had no idea what had come over him or why he had gotten so angry all of the sudden or even why he had felt the need to get his hands on the journal… enough to yell at Olivia. He remembered the look of fear and anger in her eyes as he fought to regain control of whatever it was that had been controlling him. He had been aware of everything, but he couldn't stop himself from what he was doing any of it.

Peter took a deep breath in an attempt to stabilize his breathing so he could clear his mind and think about what he was doing. Should he really continue to fight it? Or should he give in and let the impulses take control? It would have been so much easier just to let go, but at the time, he had risked hurting his wife and his daughter and he could never let that happen. But now? Maybe he would be able to find some answers if he would just let whatever it was lead him to whatever it wanted to show him. Had it been the ghost that had been haunting them only a few nights ago or was this something different?

Peter scoffed as he pushed himself to his feet, his breath still ragged as he attempted to calm himself down. If someone had asked him a month ago, if he believed in ghosts, he would have told them 'no', but after everything that had happened over the past few days, he couldn't help but rethink the logic behind his answer. His father believed in almost everything else, _besides_ ghosts, but what was it about the spirits of the long dead that made them seem more impossible than Bigfoot to the scientist? He had never really gotten a straight answer from him, or at least one that had made any sense. Was a ghost really a spirit? Or was it merely energy left behind after someone had died? Olivia had told him once before, that when she first saw him in this new time line, he had come to her in the form of some kind of energy and was able to interact with both her and Walter somehow, but he wasn't even aware that he had been doing it. Had he been a ghost? She had also told him that he appeared to Walter on shiny surfaces, on computers and clipboards and that he could hear his voice. Had he been a ghost then? Or had he been something that had buried itself deep within their subconscious minds that only began to manifest itself because they couldn't let go of him?

Was there something that this ghost couldn't let go of too?

He shook the thought from his head and got dressed, knowing that Olivia had probably called the Fringe Division to come and subdue him long ago and he needed to get out of there and go wherever this energy was beckoning him to go before it was too late. It would have been for his own good of course. He knew Olivia well enough to know that she would only want to get him back to Walter's lab so that he could try to figure out what was wrong with him so he could fix him, but Peter knew that it wouldn't be that simple. Not this time.

The thoughts lingering in his mind wanted him to go back to the asylum to find something that was there, something that was possibly left behind long ago that he needed to find, but he couldn't really be for sure what it was until he got there.

When he finally arrived, the front doors that they had gone through the last time had been locked and he didn't want to waste any time walking around the outside of the fence, looking for a second way in so he quickly decided on another solution and fished out his lock picks and went to work and was in within seconds.

The air was still and cold as he made his way through the front building, nervously grasping at the flashlight in his hand. Peter remembered that this was the building that served as the entrance to the rest of the complex and that he would need to go back outside and cross the path that led over towards the dorms again and he also remembered that there were a separate buildings for the men and the women that had been living there at one time and this time, he would need to find Robert's room.

That all too familiar feeling of eyes watching him as he made his way back outside caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand up and he clutched at the flashlight by his side as if it would somehow comfort him and give him the strength to do what needed to be done. He only wished that Olivia was there and that it was her hand that he was holding instead of the flashlight, but he knew that this was something that he needed to do on his own. He needed to protect Olivia and Etta.

If he said that he wasn't afraid of what was going on inside of his head, he would have been lying. If he had said that the ghost in his home hadn't frightened him, he would have been lying about that too. And it wasn't so much the ghost that bothered him so much as it was the fact that he couldn't protect those that he loved from whatever it was going on within their home. Even if it wasn't a ghost, he still needed a way to protect them it and he couldn't do that without finding out what it was or what it wanted. Hopefully, he would be able to find some answers here.

Reaching out, he took hold of the doorknob to the men's dorm and twisted it and it was surprisingly open. The inside of the building looked unsurprisingly similar to that of the women's dorm at a glance, which gave off the illusion of a normal hospital.

"Okay Robert, what do you want me to find here. Could you help me out a little?" he asked out loud, not really expecting an answer from the specter. Peter took a few more steps into the building, hearing glass crunching beneath his boots, but he did his best to ignore it. "So you brought me all of the way out here just to mess with me, huh? I guess that you can't trust a ghost... Why are you trying to hurt me and my family? Why us?" Peter fell silent for a moment as he walked through the halls, looking for some kind of clue as to what he had been brought there to find when he came upon a desk with several binders piled up in a big box on the edge of it. Shoving the flashlight into his pocket, he used both of his hands to reach inside of the box and pulled out all of the binders and sat them onto the desk next to it and began looking through them. Most of it was the usual hospital mumbo jumbo, but after a few moments of searching, he found what he was looking for. A list of patience and their room numbers. "One-twelve." He said as he tore the page from the binder, folded the page and shoved into the pocket with his flashlight.

"So you were on the first floor? Guess that meant that they had to keep a closer eye on you. Were you some kind of troublemaker?" he said as he made his way further down the hallway. "Whatever you were, you somehow managed to make me start talking to myself— or something that isn't even there, so I'll give you credit for that."

It was an odd feeling, speaking out loud to something that might not even be there, but the strangest part about all of it was he felt like someone was actually there in the room listening to him. That had to be impossible, right? Or else he was going crazy and needed to be in a place that was just like this one. He frowned at the thought. Maybe he was losing it or maybe it was mass hysteria and they were all starting to lose it.

"One-twelve." He said as he stepped in front of the door and hesitantly reached out to take hold of the handle, nearly afraid of what he might find on the other side. Peter took another deep breath to steady himself and then twisted the knob and as the door opened, he was met by a gust of cold air sweeping through the hallway. "Wow, what was that." he asked, mostly to himself this time as he edged into the room, turning his head each way, inspecting the area almost as if he were stepping into the middle of a war zone. "Okay Robert, would you tell me what you would like for me to find? A little help would be great…"

Peter spent what must have been hours searching through Robert's old room. He searched every book for a hiding spot cut out in the pages. There was nothing in the drawers or the closet or the small bathroom or it's cabinets and by the time that he had searcher through all of the obvious hiding places, he was beginning to grow even more frustrated, and yet he was still convinced that there was something there in the room that he needed to find, even if it was starting to seem contrary to his belief. After a long moment, tired and exhausted, Peter decided to lie on the dusty bed in Robert's old room. He had been going for most of the day, despite not getting anything to eat, and his body felt like it had been pushed to its limits that day. Peter needed a moment to rest his body and to relax—but just when he was about to close his eyes, he noticed a tile on the ceiling that looked as though it had been hastily pushed aside years ago, which caused him to bolt upright and he stood upright on the bed.

The tile was easy enough to move, but feeling his way around the edges was a little harder as he couldn't see what he was doing and he still didn't know what he was looking for. Finally, his hand landed on what felt like several pieces of old paper and he pulled each of them down and brought them over to the window to read them, or what he could make out of it. Some of the words and letters had started to fade and become worn away by now, but if what the pages were saying was correct, then Lydia must have seen Etta as hers and Robert's child, which meant that Etta was in danger, but so was Olivia and worst of all, the threat to Olivia would be coming from him.

He needed to find a way to get the pages back to Walter and to Olivia without getting near them and after a moment of consideration, he thought of Astrid and decided to call her to ask her to come and pick him up—but he was only going to leave her the pages from the journal. If he had told Astrid what was going on with him right now, she would have wanted to drag him back to the lab to be experimented on by his father and that was the last thing that he wanted right now.


End file.
